William Keith Chambers Guthrie matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1925 and obtained a double first in the Classical Tripos (a starred First in Part II, which led to him being awarded the top Studentship, the Craven, followed the year after by the Chancellor's Medal for Classics). He took part in several epigraphical expeditions to Asia Minor between 1929-32, with William Moir Calder and William Hepburn Buckler, and was elected a Fellow of Peterhouse College. On 10 June 1933, Keith Guthrie married Adele Ogilvy, a Newnham Classics graduate whom he had met several years before as a College Supervisor for the Classical Tripos. They had two children, Robin and Anne. Adele and the children were evacuated to Wales in 1940 during the Second World War, although Keith remained in Cambridge initially, before being commissioned into the Intelligence Corps. He was in London during the blitz before a period in St Albans (where his family joined him), then in 1943 was posted to Istanbul making use of his knowledge of Turkey and Turkish. His main duties were in counter-intelligence.