Charles Phillips and Margaret Mann were married at Stainton-in-Cleveland on 3 July 1940. Charles was librarian and research fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, a keen amateur archaeologist who in the previous summer had directed the excavations at Sutton Hoo .Margaret (nicknamed ‘Grig’) was an Oxford graduate, with research and teaching experience at the universities of Oxford, Manchester and London as well as in France, who since 1936 had been lecturer in French and director of studies in modern languages at Newnham College, Cambridge.

In the spring of 1941, at the age of 40, Charles Phillips joined the RAF and was posted to the Photographic Interpretation Unit at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire, to which he was attached until his transfer in January 1944 to the Directorate of Military Survey at Eastcote, Middlesex. He remained at Eastcote until his demobilisation in September 1945. During these years Grig continued to live in Cambridge and teach at Newnham (with periodic visits to her parents at Stainton), and in October 1943 gave birth to her first child, John. A daughter, Penelope, was born in 1947.