He enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1944 and applied to join the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot, but was turned down on the grounds of poor eyesight and was never in combat.
In the 1960s he turned to science fiction and fantasy under the pen name of Richard Cowper and attained considerable popularity.
Responses to his work in the genre were mixed, with readers liking his subtle, lyrical and moving stories, but some SF critics were less impressed.
Martin Amis wrote a series of harsh reviews of the Cowper books, which Murry shrugged off, saying, "He grew up with a famous father too!"
As Colin Murry As Richard Cowper (The short story "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" acts as a prologue to the three Kinship novels.