Graeme Bertram ("Blue") Blake was born in Palmerston North but grew up mainly in Wellington, attending Kelburn Primary School and Wellington College. After his medical intermediate year at Victoria University he studied medicine at Otago University from 1958 to 1961. He met Brenda Hayward, a fellow

John Robey Cobbett was a consultant plastic surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and Lewisham Hospital. He was born on 5 May 1930, the third son of Claude Racster Cobbett, a company director, and Constance Evelyn Anne Cobbett née Robey. From the age of four, following the death of his