He was born in Liverpool, son of a Scottish family doctor and an English mother, and educated at Asheville School, Asheville, North Carolina, Fettes College, Edinburgh, and Christ Church, Oxford.

He was a vegetable invoice clerk in Covent Garden market, night sterilizer in a food factory, waiter, film critic, supply teacher, actor (with the English Children's Theatre under Caryl Jenner) and finally librarian in Kensington, Keele, Shiraz, and lastly at Newcastle University.

His translation of Euripides' Medea was performed in theatres in London and New York in a production by Jonathan Kent with Diana Rigg in the leading rôle.

His poems have appeared in Oxford Poetry, The Paris Review, and many other journals.

Poetry

• On the Appian Way, 1984
• Talking Back, 1982
• Contentions, 1977
• Air in the Wrong Place, 1968

Translation

Editor