His father Alec, who became a doctor, established a hospital on the island of Iririki, offshore from Parliament House in Port Vila, training local staff in the treatment of tropical diseases.
[7] Frater's family employed the services of a native gardener, Moses, who believed the young Alexander was the reincarnation of a rain God.
Having submitted pieces to Punch while still an undergraduate at Durham he was, against all expectations, eventually offered a staff job, which prompted him to once again leave university without graduating.
[15] Frater's tenure at Punch saw him develop a friendly rivalry with a young Alan Coren, later to find fame as a humourist and participant on The News Quiz.
[16] During his time writing for The New Yorker he produced a number of stories about an idyllic, imaginary Pacific island he called Tofua.
Later he was informed by a fact-checker that such an island really existed in Tonga, which went on to form the basis for a book published many years later, Tales from the Torrid Zone.
[17] Following his time with The New Yorker he spent one year as a staff writer for The Daily Telegraph from 1966 to 1967, working on its supplemental magazine.
He attempted to recreate the journey made in the Imperial Airways 'Eastbound Empire' service - the world's longest and most adventurous scheduled air route.
[10] He lived in Richmond upon Thames, close to Heathrow Airport, but unlike many residents did not mind being under 'the glide path' and was curious about the details of the aircraft passing above his flat.
[10] In a 2004 interview with The Independent Frater named his worst travel experience as being arrested in Kupang, West Timor by the Indonesian Military and spending three days in prison, in a cell neighbouring a pit with two Komodo dragons.