He was born at Huddersfield, where his family attended Bentley Street chapel. After leaving school he worked for a local printer and then, in 1962, became sales manager for York Graphic Arts. From 1965 to 1967 he was manager of the CMS bookshops in Sierra Leone, and after returning to England became director of a group of advertising agencies in Yorkshire and the north-east. From 1972 to 1980 he worked with NCH as its general advocacy secretary and was responsible for the Jumbo Jigsaw assembled in Trafalgar Square on Easter Monday, 1974. In 1984 he became chief executive of the Methodist Publishing House, overseeing its move to Peterborough in 1988. As secretary of the World Methodist Council's international publishing committee he visited many parts of the world.
He was a member of the Deeping Methodist Church in the Peterborough Circuit, where he has served as a local preacher and held various church and circuit offices. In 2009 he moved to Durham to take up a post as a lay pastoral worker. He was Vice-President of the Conference in 1999.