Brown was educated at the Andrew Cairns Secondary Modern School, Sussex, and the University of York, where he was friends with, and a contemporary of both Harvey Proctor and Christine Hamilton (née Holman).
After studying for a year at Middle Temple, he worked as a graduate management trainee for Barclays Bank from 1972 to 1974 then as a lecturer and tutor at Swinton Conservative College from 1974 to 1975.
[citation needed] This followed a bitter selection battle between Brown and Michael Brotherton, who was MP for the Louth constituency, which included the towns of Immingham and Cleethorpes.
[citation needed] Brown threatened to resign from parliament when the village of North Killingholme, in the centre of his constituency was marked as a potential site for nuclear dumping.
[3] Brown served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Douglas Hogg, Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, from 1989 to 1990, and then at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1990 to 1992.
[1] In 1990, Brown's protégé Derek Laud became active in support of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a political party in Namibia backed by the South African government.
[citation needed] He was alleged to have received £6,000 from Ian Greer Associates to lobby on behalf of US Tobacco, and to have failed to declare it in the Register of Members' Interests or to ministers.
Initially he struggled to find employment, working for David Evans' contract cleaning firm (a fellow Conservative MP who had also lost his seat).