 He moved to Wanganui as a teenager, then transferred from the New Zealand Public Works Department to the New Zealand Railways Department at Wanganui, where he worked as a civil engineer until shifting to Porirua East in Christmas 1954 to work in the New Zealand Railways head office in Wellington.After his marriage to Frances Ward, daughter of New Zealand astronomer Joseph Thomas Ward, Brown and his family settled in Porirua East.Their 4 Martin Street home was one of many in the Government's state housing scheme but, at this time, there were relatively few houses at all in the area and remote from shops and other facilities.