Born in West Runton in 1952, Sugden initally studied pharmacy at Leicester Polytechnic before starting a PhD at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of Prewd and Prejudice (1994) in which the heroine Miriam Prewd spends a traumatic year of ‘Norfolk exile’. Written in his characteristic dead-pan style Prewd and Prejudice concerns itself with the Norfolk countryside, misconceptions about Norfolk and its self-deprecating folk. Sugden wrote that "the national papers seemed to think that it took the mickey out of country people, while the Norfolk people thought it ridiculed Londoners".

Sugden is also the author of The Cromer-Sheringham Crab Wars and the song Like a Rhinestone Ploughboy. He is the compiler of an (as yet) unpublished rhyming dictionary of Norfolk place-names for song-writing purposes. In 1996 he published The Ballad of Sid Kipper.

The Eastern Daily Press columnist Keith Skipper claimed that Sugden is "probably the county’s finest ambassador who captures the true spirit of Norfolk, teaches it tricks, then sends it to run riot across the land".

In 2006, Sugden presented a series of podcasts for Channel 4 radio called "The Kipper Country Code", as Sid Kipper.

Sid Kipper

• Like A Rhinestone Ploughboy (1994)
• Spineless (1997)
• Boiled in the Bag (1997)
• East Side Story (2000)
• Cod Pieces (2002)
• Chained Melody (2003)
• In Season (2007)

The Kipper Family

• Since Time Immoral (1984)
• The Ever Decreasing Circle (1985)
• The Crab Wars (1986)
• Fresh Yesterday (1988)
• Arrest These Merry Gentlemen (1989)
• In the Family Way (1991)