Robert Lifford Valentine ffrench Blake was born on 3 March 1913 in Rawalpindi, India.
His father was Major St. John Lucius O'Brien Acheson ffrench Blake, who was killed at the First Battle of Gaza, and his mother, Doris Kathleen Tweedie.
[1] He then worked at RAC Tactical School in Oxford and studied at the Staff College, Camberley.
[1] At the age of thirty-two, he was appointed assistant adjutant and quartermaster general (AA&QMG) to the 6th Armoured Division.
[1] In 2010, he asked his publisher to give him the royalties he was overdue from the sales of his 1972 book Dressage for Beginners in the United States.