Antony Preston was born in 1938 in Salford, Lancashire, son of the 16th Viscount Gormanston and Miss Julia O'Mahony.
After becoming a wartime evacuee, he was educated in South Africa at King Edward VII School, Johannesburg, and the University of Witwatersrand.
[1] On his return to England he spent some years at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, before becoming Editor of the periodical Defence.
In the early nineties, he took over as chief editor of the magazine Naval Forces at the German editorial group Mönch.
While nobody sets out to design a bad warship, some ships turn out unsuitable for the tasks which they are asked to perform.