- Mother Mary Leavy. Father Warner Pfeifer was a German U-Boat captain and prisoner of war.
- Wrote regularly for Cigar Journal and other magazines.
- Left St Anthony's school in Penge at 15 and, despite his headmaster saying he had no future as a journalist, within three months he had written his first article for a weekly magazine called Southern Africa, where he worked as an editorial assistant.
- Has a daughter Francesca and a son Jerome from his first marriage.
- Deputy editor of Database, the magazine for Post Office computing staff in 1980.
- Received The Snow Queen Cigar Writer of the Year award in 2015.
- In 1964 he was road manager of his school friends' band The Villains.
- Trained as a teacher at Sidney Webb College, Westminster (1974-76).
- Appeared in various London theatrical shows and worked backstage and front of house for West End productions of Cabaret, The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof.
- Became a freelance writer in 1990, working on commercial magazines and writing the Sharing an Ashtray column for Punch magazine (2000-02), for which he interviewed many famous smokers.
- From 1988 to 2009 he volunteered as a presenter of Great Ormond Street hospital radio, Hospital Radio Barnet and Angel Community Radio on the Isle of Wight.
- In 1984 he worked for British Telecom's marketing department, where he worked on the introduction of 0800 telephone numbers and was seconded to develop some of the earliest video games, including Booty, Elite and Bird Strike, under Telecomsoft's Firebird label.
- Wrote "The Harrods Pocket Guide to Fine Cigars", "The FOREST Guide to Smoking in London" and "The FOREST Guide to Smoking in Scotland: Where To Light Up".
- Studied acting at Mountview theatre school (1968-70). He performed Shakespeare in basketball stadiums on Mountview's first US coast-to-coast tour in 1970.
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