He was born at the South London Hospital for Women, the youngest of the three children of Joan Eunice Noble and Howard Westcott Sabin (Clare, Philip and Jeremy himself). His aunt Dr Margaret Noble would tell how on phoning to see how the birth was progressing, she was alarmed to find that the midwife had abandoned her sister in labour to answer the phone, and asked her to return at once.
Later, Jeremy would acquire first a stepmother Janet from his father's second marriage, and then another much loved sister, Serena, from his mother's second marriage. Serena and Philip survive Jeremy, as do Clare's children James, Sam, Anna and their families, Philip's son Hugo, and many cousins as far afield as Ireland, Australia and Zimbabwe.