[1] Cole was educated at Winchester School, where he first began playing the horn and the cello, then at King's College, Cambridge (reading natural sciences).
[2] Cole was a conscientious objector, and his application to join the Friends' Ambulance Unit during the war was turned down because of his severe stammer - this affliction led to his later interest in the Alexander Technique of relaxation, and to music therapy.
[3][4] During the war he played as a cellist with the Halle Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company before continuing his studies at the Royal College of Music in 1944: cello with Ivor James, harmony with R.O.
[3] A Company of Fools, given its first performance at Queen's College Oxford in November 1955 under Bernard Rose, sets eight poems by James Kirkup, using chorus, a quartet of soloists and strings.
[11] Commissioned by the Downside Choral Society it was first performed at Westminster Cathedral Hall on 30 March 1963, conducted by Roger Bevan, and repeated in Somerset.
[3][4] He also contributed to Grove's Dictionary of Music (including entries on Arthur Bliss, Francis Chagrin, Children's Opera, Wilfrid Josephs, Elizabeth Maconchy and Humphrey Searle).