JRJ was actually born James Norval Herald Justice on the 15th June 1907 in Lee, a suburb of Lewisham, London England. He was the son of an Aberdeen born geologist James Justice. The family must have been relatively well heeled as the young James was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire and then went on to study science at University College London. However he left after only one year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn. He apparently also failed to settle here and after barely a year left. A talent he did have in abundance was to able to pick up languages and it is said that he could speak in a great many, often stated as being up to as many as twenty different which included Spanish, French, Greek, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch and Gaelic.