He was the only child of Mary Louisa (née O'Brien) and Thomas Glen Denton Scholes; his father was a railway worker and his mother was a psychiatric nurse.

His father enlisted in the military in 1941 and was injured while fighting in New Guinea, subsequently becoming a long-term patient at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital.

Scholes stayed with relatives in various locations around Victoria while his mother worked at a munitions factory, attending twelve different schools.

[1] Scholes was the Labor Party candidate in Corio in the 1966 election, and was defeated by incumbent Liberal Sir Hubert Opperman.

As Speaker, Scholes was charged with conveying that resolution of the House to the Governor-General and to request Kerr to dismiss Fraser and re-appoint Whitlam.

Kerr refused to see the Speaker or to recognise the motion of no confidence in the Fraser government by the House of Representatives, keeping Scholes waiting for more than an hour.