John Dormandy was born on 3 May 1937 in Budapest. He was the son of Paul Szeben, a pea grower who was accustomed to exporting his crop to the UK, and his wife Clara, who was an author and dramatist. He had a sister, Daisy, and his elder brother, Thomas, was to become a consultant chemical pathologis

Michael John Knight Hudson (always known as Mike) was a consultant general, vascular and breast surgeon in north Cambridgeshire and King's Lynn. He was born in Southgate, London, on 21 March 1936, the son of Kenneth Alfred Knight Hudson, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Eucharia Aloysius Marie