James Brierley Blair was born on 10 May 1921 in Canada. His father, James Cochran Blair, was a Scots engineer who returned to the UK in 1924 with his wife Sarah Edith (nee Brierley) to take up a post of salesman at Alfred Herbert Ltd in Coventry. By the time of his wife's early death in July 1930 he was described as an engineer and director of the firm. The family lived at Mill Street Warwick.
By 1942 James junior -who came to be known as Hamish- was living in Leamington on Kenilworth Road. In February 1948 he travelled from the US to the UK on board the Queen Mary, his occupation described as a mechanical engineer. He married
Joan Marie Shadwell in Eastbourne later that year. Their son Hamish was born in 1954 and continues to live in Kenilworth with his wife Jenny. James died aged just 51 on 21 May 1972, and Joan Marie died many years later on 12 January 2003 at the age of 83.