[1][2] His father Harry was a parish priest, and his mother Noel (née Oakley) was a teacher.
[2] From 1964 to 1968, while studying medicine at the University of Birmingham, he was a curate at St Wulstan's Church, Bournbrook.
[1][2] At Queen's College, he led seminars in ethics, in addition to training priests and ministers for a range of Christian denominations.
[2] He trained as a general practitioner (GP) and worked in the King's Norton area of Birmingham until he returned to academia in 1974.
[1] He once again became a full-time GP in 1979, and ran an "experimental medical practice" in Balsall Heath, Birmingham until he retired in 1996.