Zoologist, English teacher, gardener: the varied life of a globe-trotting Briton, and his best move ever – to an island in Hong Kong

Northumberland days I was born in Morpeth, Northumberland (in northeast England), in 1946. Coal mining areas were on the fringe of the town, but they have long since closed, which led to widespread unemployment. Both my parents were from Yorkshire and they bought a four-bedroom house in Morpeth for £3,000, which sounds incredibly cheap today.

I was the youngest of three children, with an older sister and brother. I was enrolled in Morpeth’s King Edward VI Grammar School. It always seemed a bit weird to be a pupil where my father was a staff member – he taught chemistry.

Even as a youngster I was keen on bird­watching and I tried to capture pictures of what I saw with a Brownie 127 camera. It was difficult and I don’t think I got a single good picture. We had a sizeable garden and as a kid I was given my own vegetable patch where I grew things like radishes, peas and beans.

Spreading my wings When it came time to decide on my future, I wanted to see somewhere new, so I opted for Bristol University, where I did a joint degree in zoology and psychology. Psychology was my major but by graduation I didn’t fancy the career options it offered. So I went to London, where I had a number of temporary jobs, like working in a film-processing laboratory and as a sales assistant in the HMV record shop on Oxford Street.

After a year I moved to Brighton to do a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) focusing on zoology, which qualified me to teach science. I got a job teaching in a girls’ comprehensive school in Brixton, south London. The year was 1969 and immigration from the Caribbean was in full swing. There were new students all the time.

They were used to having school only in the morning and spending their afternoons at the beach. So often I was asked, “Do we have to go to school in the afternoon?” It felt terrible to have to tell them, “Yes, I’m afraid so!”