[1] He was born in Barnt Green, and attended New College, Oxford, where he won the Richard Hillary prize for poetry.
[2][3] He traveled to Japan in 1964 on the advice of his father, Raymond, and returned five years later to teach at Reitaku University.
After retiring from Reitaku in 1994, he became the drama coach at Meitoku Gijuku High School in Kochi.
[1] Many of Bantock's poems treat elements of Christianity, history, mythology, or medieval and Renaissance literature in arresting, often disturbing terms.
[4] His poems "Joy" and "Dirge" were included by Philip Larkin in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse.