Geoffrey Foster was born in London, England in 1933, and his childhood was mostly spent in Kent, in southeast England, where there are towns like Woodhampton. His father was a London policeman most of his working life, and his mother, when she worked, was a shorthand typist (a stenographer). He has two sisters, five and thirteen years younger than himself. He went to public elementary and secondary schools and then to the University of Cambridge, where he studied engineering. Moving to Australia in 1959, he taught Mechanical Engineering at the University of Queensland for 14 years, before switching to educational development. He took early retirement in 1995. As well as writing, he likes reading, listening to music, solving cryptic crosswords, walking the family beagle, Kafka, and playing tennis with his younger sister, Ynes.