 He attended Retford Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was awarded an MA in Agriculture.Upon graduation, he worked for Booker McConnell, then took an MSc in Tropical Agriculture at Reading University.Since then, he has spent most of his working life in Africa, helping the governments of Zambia and principally Zimbabwe in decentralised rural development, for which he was appointed an OBE in the Birthday Honours List of 1996.