[2] A Kind of Wild Justice (1978), Running Scared (1986), and Little Soldier (1999) were commended runners up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book.
Ashley's TV drama Dodgem (based on his own novel) won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Entertainment programme (BBC) in 1993.
Born in Woolwich, south London,[4] Ashley trained as a teacher at Trent Park College of Education after his National Service in the RAF.
[5] His teaching career included thirty years as headteacher,[5] his most recent schools being in south and east London, experience which gave the setting for many of his stories.
In the early sixties, Ashley completed an account of the lifeboat service for children, The Men and the Boats, first in the Serving Our Society series published by Allman & Son.