Richard Saunders

Richard Edmund Saunders was born in the English village of Twyford in the royal county of Berkshire in 1967. His enthusiasm for writing was ignited at the age of seven when his dad rescued a Remington manual typewriter from the office skip and brought it home. His first almost-published work was 'The Bootleg Rogue Mail' - an alternative school magazine that failed to pass the staff room censors.

His parents Mike and Jane - a sales rep and dinner lady - sacrificed summer holidays and many of the other finer things in life to send their only son to public school. The Reading Bluecoat School in Sonning-on-Thames provided much more than an education to a naturally shy boy of 11 years.

Looking back, Richard realises how the seven years he spent there shaped the rest of his life; it is no coincidence that many of the characters in The Grey House, Davey Dobbs's school, are named after his own teachers.

Upon leaving school, Richard bucked the trend set by most of his peers and shunned university - a decision he suspects was a disappointment to his parents. Instead he started work as a trainee reporter and then journalist for seven years. From there the poacher turned gamekeeper and he moved into public relations, working for clients ranging from paint makers to antivirus software vendors.

An enthusiastic player of most sports in his youth, Richard now satisfies himself with a few games of darts for his village pub team. His one claim to fame is that he twice held the Guinness World Record for playing non-stop darts, raising money for Cancer Research and The Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Today Richard lives in Charvil, just a few miles from the house where he was born, with wife Jacqui, his two daughters - Hannah and Jemma - and their Labradors, Charlie and Poppy.