Mike was born in Northumberland, lived in Wiltshire for his secondary years of schooling, attended Art College in Cheltenham and trained as a teacher in Canterbury. He taught ceramics in a secondary school in Kent for 10 years, was a tutor for in-service courses for teachers, and moderated GCSE examinations in Art. He gained an M.A. in Art Education then lectured at the Kent institute of Art & Design until he and his family went to Queensland where he began illustrating professionally. He worked for a year delivering workshops in ceramics with the Australian Flying Art School and was simultaneously funded by Government agencies to run illustration workshops for schools. After some years the family returned to the UK where he has continued to illustrate for a living, also occasionally teaching ceramics and 3D computer modeling with animation. He lives in Kent and has three daughters. The youngest is still at school, the older girls graduated in Biomedical Science and Fine Art respectively, both now working in Sheffield.