John Connell Park was born on 4 May 1933 in Newtownards, County Down, the son of Samuel Park, a general practitioner, and Edith Helen Connell, a schoolteacher. He was educated at Repton and Queen's University, Belfast. He did his junior appointments at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and then

Hugh Forrest, whose father was a draughtsman and whose mother, Annie Tough Hay was a secretary, was born in Greenock on 12 June 1929. His initial education was at Greenock High School, where he won a poster prize for National Savings; he then went on to medical school in Glasgow, graduating in 1955