Nicholas Temple-Smith was born in north London and educated at Westminster School. He spent several years working in Canada for a non-governmental non-profit corporation which organised work camps in low income rural communities, particularly Indian reserves and Inuit villages. This allowed him to travel extensively across that vast country, spending time in every province and territory. Returning to England, he took up a career in sales, eventually running his own company. As often as circumstances permitted, he travelled, especially to South East Asia. He also discovered an interest in (some might say obsession with) jazz and hot dance music of the 1920s and 1930s, and he amassed a collection of over one thousand 78rpm records, and a few hundred LPs and CDs. In addition, he served for ten years as a special constable in the Metropolitan Police.
He moved to Florida in 2001, where he now lives with his wife. He gained a degree from Santa Fe College in Gainesville and, as he has been since early childhood, is a voracious reader of books – real books, made of paper.
In spite of his travels, he considers himself one hundred percent a Londoner.
