Stacey attended Wellesley House School (1938–1943), originally at Broadstairs, Kent, but from September 1939 was evacuated to the Scottish Highlands.
With the Scots Guards (1948–50), in which he received his commission as Second Lieutenant, on active service in what is now known as peninsular Malaysia, he spent his leave with the Temiar aborigines in the jungle, and wrote his first book (The Hostile Sun).
He joined The Sunday Times as roving correspondent and chief foreign correspondent (1960–65), with a worldwide brief, covering the dismantling of the British Empire globally, and major conflict zones of the period, and interviewing many heads of state (including Nikita Khrushchev, Morarji Desai, Ayub Khan, Harold Macmillan, and Éamon de Valera).
From 1967 to 1970, he was editor and creator of Correspondents World Wide, a current affairs service for schools and universities, mobilising the skills of several distinguished journalistic colleagues.
In 1974, he founded Stacey International, the book publisher, originally majoring extensively on the Middle East and Islamic world, later expanding into general book publishing and initiating the literary fiction imprint Capuchin Classics, the Independent Minds series campaigning on heterodox climate science and the legalisation of all drugs; and the "return of real history" with the reissue of Carter & Mear's History of Britain for schools, in 9 volumes.
In October 1954, in Uganda, Stacey co-founded the Bakonzo Life History Research Society, which, throughout a tempestuous campaign demanding his consistent involvement, was to emerge as the vehicle of a recognised Kingdom of Rwenzururu 55 years later.
[1] In March 1963, Stacey was urgently invited by Milton Obote, Prime Minister of newly independent Uganda, to mediate between the Government and secessionist Bakonzo tribe in the Ruwenzori Mountains (Rwenzururu) while furloughed from the Sunday Times.
In 1999, he conceived and organised 'Pilgrimage 2000', a nationwide Christian pilgrimage, starting at eight sacred sites and converging upon Canterbury to herald the new Millennium.
Various of his novels have been Book of the Year choices by critics of national journals, including Decline (Sunday Telegraph), Tribe (TLS), and The Man Who Knew Everything (New Statesman).