[3] He studied at Durham University, where he edited Palatinate during Michaelmas term of 1948; and stayed on to complete a Diploma of Education (1951).
[4] After some six years of study concurrent to his teaching career, he earned his MLitt (1958) from Durham.
[1][5] His thesis, supervised by Eric Birley, was on the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana.
[6] For a period of three years in the 1960s Spaul lived in Blantyre, Malawi, where he was a history teacher at the University of Malawi, before returning to the United Kingdom and settling in Longparish, near Andover, Hampshire.
[7] In July 1960 he married Marion Spaul (née Nelder),[7] who died in January 2021.