Derek H Redfern was born in Gateshead in the North East of England, which makes him a proud Geordie. He spent several years working in sales environments after leaving school, eventually becoming the Marketing Director of a small wholesale business supplying the picture framing trade. Having got bored of sales, he trained to become a secondary school teacher, qualifying in 1999. Over the next 19 years he would teach in an Inner London school, a small market town school, University level and in private schools in China, Greece and Spain. He now lives in Whitby in North Yorkshire where he and his wife run a small picture framing business.