 The family moved first to Birkenhead and then to Stoke-on-Trent, following Walter Bailey as he was called to different churches.Eventually he became so idiosyncratic that he ran his own church from home.Simon Bailey continued his education at Regent's Park College, the Baptist Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature under John F. Kiteley (himself once the pupil of J. R. R. Tolkien).