He was Member of Parliament for Banffshire from 1964 to 1974, when he lost his seat in the February election of that year to Hamish Watt of the Scottish National Party.
He attended The Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester before starting a medicine degree at the University of Nottingham.
Having joined the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery following the outbreak of World War II.
In 1945, he landed in France the day after D-Day in a glider with the 1st Airborne Division, and fought at the Battle of Arnhem.
[1] After leaving Parliament, he relocated to the Channel Islands where he traded stamps, and later moved to Paignton, Devon, where he worked in a job centre.