John Gray was born in 1938. Educated at Tonbridge School, he read law at Brasenose College, Oxford. Called to the Bar in 1962, he was an Inner Temple major scholar from 1962 - 5 and practised at the Common Law Bar for over thirty years, sitting as a recorder from 1984 to 1994 when he left the Bar to change direction; to write, attend his garden and indulge a life-long interest in wood.