Enid Wheldon was born on 18 June 1933 in Chester-Le-Street, County Durham. Her father, Joseph William Wheldon was a farmer and her mother, Jane née Rutter was a school teacher. After attending Chester-Le-Street Grammar School, she went up to Girton College Cambridge to study medicine and trained at

Calbert Inglis Phillips was a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Edinburgh. An only son of the manse, he was born in Glasgow on 20 March 1925, the son of the Rev David Horner Phillips and Margaret Calbert Phillips née Inglis. The family moved to Aberdeen in 1938 and the young Phillips a