Richard Walker spent part of his childhood in Ghana, read English at Oxford, and worked in Canada, Spain and Kuwait, before joining the British Council. Most of his subsequent professional life was spent travelling the world as a senior Director for the British Council. It brought him postings in Bangkok, New Delhi, São Paolo, Lagos, Cyprus, Athens, Brussels and Hong Kong. Now he divides his time between his home in Oxford, and the house and garden he and Lauren created by a Venetian town in the Peloponnese. Several of his stories and plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and in 1989 he published his first novel, A Curious Child - now republished by Amaurea Press, who in 2025 also published Richard's memoir, Highlife, & my other lives. He was awarded an OBE in 1998 for Indo-British cultural relations.