His father died when he was eight, and his mother married the almost twenty years younger Frank Humphreys when he was twelve.
Goodwin apparently got on well with his stepfather, and Frank Humphreys', and his mother's, love for the outdoors - especially fishing and rough shooting - were an important influence on him.
The success of this novel led to Cape offering him a contract for two further books and Goodwin and his family moved to Hertfordshire and he became a full-time writer.
In 1938 they moved to Corris Uchaf, near Machynlleth, where Goodwin wrote his last novel Come Michaelmas (1939), which is set in a barely disguised Newtown.
[3] As Kate Gramich comments, although he left only "a handful of novels and short stories" these are works which "are still extraordinarily fresh and vigorous".