Education
After being educated at Hereford Cathedral School, where he was Head Boy, he matriculated to and graduated from Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge, returning to Hereford Cathedral school as a drama and English teacher.
After being educated at Hereford Cathedral School, where he was Head Boy, he matriculated to and graduated from Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge, returning to Hereford Cathedral school as a drama and English teacher.
Born in Hereford, he spent the first 16 years of his life living in a public (something he would later write about in his book Boy at the Commercial). He began writing radio plays in his spare time, and was eventually hired full-time by the British Broadcasting Corporation. His productions for them included Crisp and Even Brightly (a comedic retelling of the story of Good King Wenceslas) and Operation Lightning Pegasus (which covered the Siege of Troy). Outside of radio he wrote several books and television productions, including The Prime of Mission Jean Brodie in 1978 for STV, The Tripods for the British Broadcasting Corporation, and winning a British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1993.
In 1998 he was jailed for child indecency, moving to Thailand on his release.
He died in Chiang Mai of a suspected heart attack on 30 October 2009.