Sons Kingsley and Charles were educated at Abergavenny Grammar School. There Charles got into the early rock and roll music of Elvis Presley, and began playing an acoustic guitar that he purchased for £5. In 1960 the brothers formed "a little rock group" and Kingsley wrote a couple of songs. The brothers started recording songs, using a tape deck borrowed from a local businessman. Deciding that they needed to get a record deal, they drove up to EMI's pressing plant in Middlesex, but were redirected to Manchester Square, London where on that same day without an appointment they met producer George Martin. Martin decided not to sign them, but the brothers recognised that Martin only took the meeting as they had a portable reel-to-reel tape deck, and told them that they were the first artists to do that.