Wilfred Glassford McNeilly was born in Georgetown, Strathclyde, Scotland, on 8 March 1921. He was an army cadet in school, and was commissioned into the army shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, serving with the Lothian and Borders Horse, then in India with the 2nd Royal Lancers, and finally as a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Indian Navy. He met his wife, a Scottish nurse, in India. In 1947 he returned to live with his parents, who had moved to County Antrim.