Born in West Hoathly, Sussex, he was educated at Felcourt School, Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Sorbonne. He trained and practised as a barrister, having been called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1945, before starting to write. During the Second World War, he served with an air defence unit and manned an anti-aircraft battery at Portsmouth, where the man next to him was killed by shrapnel.
