Jomo Kenyatta was born Kamau to parents Moigoi and Wamboi ”” his father was the chief of a small agricultural village in Gatundu Division, Kiambu District ”” one of five administrative districts in the Central Highlands of British East Africa (now Kenya).

Moigoi died when Kamau was very young and he was, as custom dictated, adopted by his uncle Ngengi to become Kamau wa Ngengi. Ngengi also took over the chiefdom and Moigoi's wife Wamboi.

Norman Stewart Middleton was born in January 1921, in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng) and moved to Pietermaritzburg, Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal) when he was 10. In 1940, after finishing school, he signed up to join the army.  

He was a soldier during World War II in North Africa and Italy and was wounded by shrapnel in an air raid. After the war, Middleton returned to Pietermaritzburg and began working at Eddels shoe factory, where he became an active member of the Leather Workers’ Union, eventually becoming vice-chairperson.