The author was educated at a boarding school in rural England and obtained an M.A in Modern Languages from Cambridge University. For a number of years he worked in London as a freelance teacher, journalist and broadcaster. He has travelled widely, teaching in Germany, Canada and the United States, as well as his native England. In 1963, he took a teaching assignment in Texas, where he obtained much of the background for this Series, one of friendship and hopeful dreams. He currently writes and teaches in England's West Country.