Michael Richard Colwill was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Mount Vernon and Hillingdon Hospitals. He was born in Bangalore, India, where his father, Major General Richard Freeman Colwill CBE, was serving in the Indian Army. His mother was Margaret Odette née Maynard. As was usual at that time,

Peter Bewes was a consultant surgeon in Uganda and Tanzania, and then at Birmingham Accident Hospital. He was born on 21 September 1932 in Nairobi, Kenya, to missionary parents, the Reverend Thomas Francis Cecil Bewes and Nellie Sylvia Cohu Bewes née Berry. This was the era in East Africa of long te