 Although he never won the national sabre championship (his best placing was second) from 1968 till the early 1970s he was the most successful British sabreur in international competition.Beyond the world of fencing, he won a Blue at Cambridge as a discus-throwing member of the university athletics team.After Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, he became a successful rainmaker for several advertising companies before a back injury sustained at his school, Sevenoaks, led him to retire to Sydney, Australia, in the 1980s.