He left school at 14 years of age but continued to spend his spare time drawing and painting.

After the war, he secured a place at the Camberwell College of Arts, where he was taught by Edward Ardizzone, Michael Rothenstein, Keith Vaughan, and John Buckland Wright, and was a contemporary of Theodore Mendez.

[2] His work moved from early landscape and architectural interest to abstraction but with a great variety of style and technique.

In 1963, Durrant moved to Cambridge to take up the post of Art Gallery Manager at Heffers at the time a well known local artists' materials and book sellers.

There have been several retrospective exhibitions of Durrant's work since his death, including a one-man show at the Fine Art Society in New Bond Street London in May 2008.