He grew up in Scarborough and moved to Gainsborough were his parents ran the local Conservative Club, the river allotments and paved streets which feature in his early poetry are all still where he would have remembered them, and was educated at Gainsborough Grammar School.
He studied at Newcastle University, and Wye College, taking an Master of Science .
In environmental science. He lectured at Kirkley Hall Agricultural College. Drawing on his background in this semi industrial town his early poetry reflects on the town and his family and is evocative of the period (1970s) and the place.
He wrote for green journals, and took part in the Trees Foreign programme for world reforestation.
An annual award in his name is made by the Northern Writers".
