Failing to gain entrance to read English at the University of Cambridge, he returned to London where he enrolled at the Borough Polytechnic Art School.
Although in regular work, he left the Express after five years, seeing no prospects being in competition with Osbert Lancaster and Carl Giles.
In 1962 he began producing his trademark "little man" character for the Sunday Telegraph, and in 1979 he brought this as a regular and long-running contribution to The Times.
[3] A small-format single-frame "pocket cartoon", the little man series used hand-lettered text in soft pencil and minimalist detail, a technique he had evolved due to early weaknesses in draughtsmanship.
On 10 February 1994, he died of a coronary thrombosis (heart attack) at the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square while watching the film Carlito's Way with writer Deborah Moggach, his partner for the last ten years of his life.