Iris Kane was born in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, on 22 November 1923, the only daughter of Michael Harry Kirkpatrick Kane, MRCP, and Winifred Alma Roworh, who was also a qualified doctor. She was educated until the age of eleven at the Roedean School, Johannesburg, at which she gained a scholarshi

Robert Wellesley-Cole was born in Kossoh, Freetown, Sierra Leone on 11 March 1907, the eldest son of Wilfred Sidney Ageh, a civil engineer and superintendent of Freetown waterworks, and Elizabeth, née Okafor-Smart, a West African of Krio race. His Nigerian great-grandfather had settled in Freetown t