Biography

After graduation from the University of Toronto he spent nine years working for the Colonial Service in what is now Zambia, first as a district officer reviewing local civil cases, then lecturing at a staff training college in Luanshya and finally teaching administration in Lusaka.

Did his national service with the Royal Leicesters in Korea. There he trod on a landmine shortly after arriving and ended up losing his lower leg.

Studied English and French at the University of Toronto.

After retiring from the British Council, in 2005 he had a surprise success as an author when a novel he had written more than 30 years previously, "It's All Right Now", was published by Faber and Faber when he was 73.

His father volunteered in Prague during the late 1930s to help run Nicholas Winton's Czech Kindertransport.