John Kirk was a consultant plastic surgeon at the Tayside Regional Plastic Surgery Unit. He was born in Edinburgh on 23 June 1922, but spent most of the first six years of his life in China, where his mother and father, also John Kirk, were medical missionaries. The family returned to the UK in 1928

Ian Fraser Muir was a consultant plastic surgeon for the Grampian Health Board and a senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. He was born on 26 August 1921 in West Hartlepool, the son of John Kerr Muir and Margaret McKenzie Muir née Duke. He came from a medical family: his father was a general