Eric Wilson McMechan was born on 13 August 1910 in Portaferry, Co Down. He was the third child of John Henry McMechan, a farmer and a local magistrate. He studied at the Methodist College and Queen's University in Belfast and there obtained his MB BCh. Moving to London he worked at St Mark's and the

James Armstrong came from a staunchly medical Belfast family but spent very little of his life in his native province. His father John was a surgeon and sometime Member of Council of the RCS Ireland; his mother Maria, née Rowan, was a doctor, as were three of his brothers and his sister. James wa