Born at Hampton, Middlesex, and educated at Hampton Grammar School, Balliol College, Oxford (BA in chemistry 1976), Warwick (Cert Ed. 1977), and. later in life Newcastlle ( Ph.D under Martin Luff 1999). Married in 1977 and taught at Crown Hills School, Leicester until 1983 when, wishing to have a more professional association with Coleoptera, he joined the Leicestershire Museums Service as a curator of collections.