Eustace Victor Hope, the younger son and second of three children of Herbert Ashworth Hope, a barrister and company chairman, was born on 3 June 1914 at Church Stretton, Shropshire. He was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before entering St Thomas's Hospital Medical School an

Alison George Selborne Bailey, known as 'Joe', was larger than life. He was born on 19 July 1915, the son of George Frederick Selborne Bailey, a general practitioner and Mabel Yardley Guard, a midwife. He was educated at Radley, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he spent much of his t