After leaving university in London, Richard Sloane roamed the world as a peripatetic English teacher for about twenty years, teaching an enormous variety of students up to and including university level, with just a couple of years back in England to do further studying. Then he returned to live in Cambridge and continued teaching for roughly another twenty years until he was forced to retire for medical reasons. After this he became a full-time author and has so far published seven novels for adults and a number of books for children and young people.