Background
Born in Syracuse, New York on 17 January 1930, the son of a paediatrician, Doust had no desire to enter into the medical profession like his father.
correspondent journalist author
Born in Syracuse, New York on 17 January 1930, the son of a paediatrician, Doust had no desire to enter into the medical profession like his father.
He had his heart set on writing, and attended the University of Rochester and then spent a year studying journalism at Stanford University. His next assignment was to Mexico City, but when this was completed, rather than return to base, he moved, along with his wife and daughter to a mud hut in Valle de Bravo in Mexico, with the aim of writing a novel.
His first job in journalism was with The Kansas City Star, before he later joined Time as a foreign correspondent. The stay did not last long, and an old colleague from Time enticed him to move to London to work as a sports writer for The Sunday Times. He began writing "Inside Track", a column in which he wrote sports diaries, writing about subjects which most writers would actively avoid.
Upon the retirement of Henry Longhurst, he became golf correspondent for the paper, and worked for a short time in 1989 as sports editor of the Sunday Correspondent.
When that paper ceased publication the year after, Doust became a freelance writer, which gave him more time to work on a number of sports books He died from cancer aged 77 on 13 January 2008.