 He was educated at Lancing College, St John's College, University of Oxford (where he took a double first) and Louvain University.During the early 1920s, he was a Professor of English in Japan (where he tutored the sons of the Emperor of Japan), then a Professor at the University of Peking.He sailed to Singapore on a tramp steamer, and worked as a barman at the "Long Bar" of the Raffles Hotel, before returning to Oxford.