Anthony Handy was born in Yorkshire in September (the Vinemoon!) of 1951. As a child, his family moved to Warwickshire, and here he learned to love the countryside and its wildlife, as well as poetry, music, and (well into his teens!) proper ale. He began to write poetry at 16. After teacher training, he settled in Herefordshire, appreciating its wildness and sense of being on the edge of things. He quickly took up The Morris, and still performs the local Welsh Border Morris dances with The Leominster Morris. By the early 1980s he had a son and daughter and had become headteacher of a village