David Fursdon

[1] The son of Major General Francis William Edward Fursdon and his wife, Joan Rosemary Worssam, he was born in 1952 at Bitchet Green, Kent.

[2] After attending Sherborne School, Fursdon was commissioned into the 6th Gurkha Rifles as a Second Lieutenant in February 1972,[3] serving in Brunei and British Hong Kong.

He had previously won a scholarship to the University of Oxford, where after military service he studied at St John's College from October 1972–July 1975.

[8] He also made a single first-class appearance for a combined Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricket team against the touring Indians in 1974,[5] taking his career best bowling figures of 6 for 60 during the first innings of the match.

[11] Fursdon attended the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) 1984/06 (elected Honorary Fellow in 2016), qualifying as a rural surveyor (FRICS) and worked as an equity partner, land agent and property auctioneer at Stags until 2003.