In the 1930s he obtained a BSc in Metallurgy at Manchester University and worked as a metallurgist at Samuel Fox's steelworks near Sheffield until World War II broke out.

They include prose novels, autobiographical accounts of travel and other experiences, historical works, and poetry, mainly light verse in various forms and idioms.

His books on travel were highly personal, even autobiographical, and he largely illustrated them himself: Lister's major honour was being voted in as Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) 1970.

Painting from then on occupied me happily and kept me alive for the next ten years.” [1] On inspecting two of his works shown in his attached portrait, one might suspect that this unlooked-for success in a competitive field could stem partly from a curious talent for combining a playful presentation with serious background material, such as clouds and mountains that are rendered with conviction in paintings that initially give an impression of a childlike style.

His readers might find it worth contemplating that aspect in analogy to his writing style; practically everything Lister produced in any medium had something serious at the core.