He began contributing to newspapers and magazines during the First World War, while serving in the army.

After the war he freelanced - his clients including The Radio Times[1] - until the mid-1920s, when he was appointed literary editor of The Daily Express.

At the beginning of the Second World War he served in the Ministry of Information and then the BBC.

His second biography, the official life of Lord Northclife, written in collaboration with Northcliffe's nephew Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth, was published in 1959.

[4] His later biographies included those of Alfred Munnings (1962),[5] Robert Falcon Scott (1966), Henry Wood (1969), Queen Victoria (1970), Albert, Prince Consort (1973) and A. P. Herbert (1976).