 There he worked on dinosaurs and their immediate Triassic ancestors, but also studied creatures as varied as limbless amphisbaenians (worm-lizards) and a Fijian gastropod, "Thatcheria".Charig was educated at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school (at that time in Hampstead), and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.His university education was interrupted by National Service in the Royal Armoured Corps, first as a tank driver and, after volunteering for an Inter-Services Russian language course at Cambridge, as a Russian interpreter in Germany, from 1946 to 1948.