Christopher was the only child of The Reverend Robert Waltham Porter and his wife Monica La Fontaine McAnally. He was born in West Ham in the spring of 1922. His father was the Rector of West Ham, but moved, soon after, to be Rector of Steeple Aston. He died there on 30 September 1927, leaving £1,107-5-4 to his widow who was thirty years younger than him. She was a daughter of the Rector of Great Massingham Norfolk. In 1933, she married Carol Humphrey Vivian Sutherland (also known as Humphrey Sutherland).
Humphrey Sutherland was the younger brother of the painter Graham Sutherland. He had been up at Christ Church and in 1932 became an Assistant Keeper in the Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum. From 1939 he lectured in numismatics and was appointed Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room in 1957. He was a Student of Christ Church and retired in 1975. He was appointed CBE in 1970.
Christopher was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Matriculated in 1941. He was up for a year and was awarded his B.A. in 1944
He was a Sub-Lieutenant RNVR at HMS Daedalus, The Royal Navy Air station at Lee-on-Solent serving with 29 Air Squadron RAF.
On 22 July 1944, he left RAF Hunsdon, Hertfordshire in Mosquito NF MkX111 as observer with Flt Lt. G.E. Allison. They were shot down over Germany near Plantlunne and both of them were killed.
He had just married in Oxford, Rosina Mary Joyce Pinney. She remarried in 1946.
He is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery Plot. 16. E. 13.