[1] Martin has said that his parents had a difficult marriage, as his father was stern, pompous, and humourless, while his mother was adventurous, witty, and sociable.

In England, Booth worked as a truck driver, legal clerk, wine steward, and English teacher (in Rushden).

[citation needed] The book features a series of lyrics in which he seeks links between the present and the Saxon past, and the man called Knot who gave his name to the village.

The book is based on what he heard from a man he met as a boy in Hong Kong and contains passages set in that city during the Second World War.

His interest in observing and studying wildlife resulted in a book about Jim Corbett, a big-game hunter and expert on man-eating tigers.

Booth was also fond of the United States, where he had many poet friends, and of Italy, which features in many of his later poems and in his novel A Very Private Gentleman (1990).