Geoffrey Yates-Bell was born in London on 6 December 1902, and educated at St Dunstan's College and King's College Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1925 and subsequently held junior appointments at King's. In 1930, at the early age of 28, he was appointed consultant urologist to King's Colle

Joe Fathi was born in Cairo on 3 March 1903, the second child of Dr Bernard Fathi and Mrs Fathi (née Rowntree). He came to England at an early age to be educated; He was at the Friends' School, Wigton, Cumberland, from 1910 to 1917 and then at the Friends' School, Saffron Waldon, Essex, from 1917