[1] Born in 1934 at Aldershot in Hampshire into a well-known family of bakers who supplied the Royal Family at the nearby Royal Pavilion,[citation needed] Darracott was the son of Joseph Stuart Darracott (1885-1965), of The Laurels, Cargate Avenue, Aldershot, a baker and confectioner, and Henrietta (1891-1993), née Hoey, from Craigellachie, Moray, Scotland, who was a certificated art teacher and assistant technical superintendent in the Women's Royal Air Force during the First World War.
He completed his training at the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie at Sorbonne University in Paris before being appointed as Keeper of the Rutherston Collection at Manchester City Art Gallery from 1961.
[1] From 1964 to 1969 he was Lecturer in Art History at Hornsey College of Art[4] during which period he witnessed the famous 1968 sit-in at the college by students in what was described as "perhaps the most prominent manifestation in England of the revolutionary spirit which swept universities all over Europe in the late Sixties.
"[1] From 1969 to 1983 Darracott was Assistant Director and Keeper of Art at the Imperial War Museum in London.
He wrote the catalogue for the exhibition 'All for Art: the Ricketts and Shannon Collection' at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1979.