Mike was born in Cambridge to a Scots mother and French father where he and his four sisters were brought up bi-lingually.

Mike obtained his first degree and Ph.D. in the Physics Department of Imperial College London. After a short period of postdoctoral research he worked on the early CT scanner at EMI under the inventor Godfrey Houndsfield. By the mid-1980s Mike had pioneered a prototype encryption chip which, sadly was not taken into production as EMI hit the early 1990's recession.

Mike left in 1993 and became an engineering consultant. After a three-month contract with the then Defence and Evaluation Research Agency (DERA which became QinetiQ in 2002) he accepted a permanent job with them. This involved a 2hr 40 commute each way to Havant in Hampshire. In 2007 he moved to the much closer Air Systems at QinetiQ in Farnborough and took redundancy in 2009.

By early 2010 Mike had become a one-to-one science tutor in London a job he very much enjoys to the present day.

Mike served on Queen's Club Gardens (QCG) Residents Association, a founder member of FPRA, from 1979 to 2007 when he was invited onto the Board of Directors of Queen's Club Gardens Ltd QCG, which had evolved from the RA after it purchased the leasehold in 1993. He serves on the Major Works subcommittee.

About 1981, the then QCGRA and FPRA Chairman Mr. Salmon James persuaded Mike to join the FPRA committee. He became Treasurer after successfully apportioning the bill after a post-committee meeting dinner a position he still hold much to his surprise! Although FPRA has often been near to going under financially - it has survived. He still remembers the AGM where he helped to justify a 60% increase in annual subs.

Mike has recovered from a hip replacement operation in June 2011 and is back to his twice weekly swims and long walks recommended by his surgeon.