John Hardy was born in Marske-by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire, England. He worked for many years as a quantity surveyor, before becoming a lecturer in building construction. Later, he practised as a natural medicine practitioner in Essex and Cumbria, including homoeopathy, acupuncture and massage, specialising in allergies. Later, together his wife Wendy, he ran a wholefood vegetarian guesthouse on Alston Moor in the North Pennines. For the last 22 years, he has lived in the Axarquía in Spain, a region to the north east of Málaga. He has published a wide range of material over the years, including articles on natural medicine, a book on civil engineering measurement, and various books of short stories of crime and mystery.