Before university, I spent year with VSO in Cameroon as an instructor at an Outward Bound Centre working with Nigerian students on mountaineering, seamanship, and community development. Then I read Modern History at Oxford and gained my postgraduate teaching qualification at the London University Institute of Education, where I specialised in English as a Foreign Language. My first job was as a British Council Officer in Indonesia, but after a year we were declared persona non grata as part of Indonesia's policy of 'Confrontation' with Britain, so I returned to Britain. I left the British Council and became an English teacher.

I have taught at all levels, from primary school to university. This experience includes working as a Head of Department in an English comprehensive school, lecturing at a teacher training college in Scotland, and being Head of English at a teachers’ college in Kenya.

I began writing teaching materials for publication in the mid 1970s. My first major textbook success was with Oxford Secondary English published by Oxford University Press in the early 1980s. A string of successful textbooks followed during that decade and the next, published by Oxford University Press and Heinemann Educational. Most of these books were aimed primarily at the UK market but many have also been used extensively around the world. In addition, I have written titles specifically for overseas markets, including a book about the teaching of English for West Africa and English textbooks for Pakistan.

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