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

In 1969, Geoff Carl Hipwell returned from his postgraduate ophthalmology training in London. He was truly a breath of fresh air in ophthalmology in Sydney in that era, as very few ophthalmic surgeons had a Fellowship from any of the royal surgical colleges at that time. Geoff soon commenced work at