Philip Hewitt grew up and went to school in the town of Croydon
before it became part of London. He studied German and French at
Oxford and taught both languages in Britain for two years at the
Royal Merchant Navy School near Reading, after which he was
prepared to give up on teacher for ever!
In 1970 he moved to Germany with his German wife and young
daughter, first to Hanover, where he became a teacher of English,
then to Stuttgart, where he worked as an editor in the Modern
Languages department of a large German publishing house before
becoming a freelance translator and teacher in 1977.
Since then he has written several English textbooks and readers,
most published in Germany. He and his new family moved back to
Britain in 2002 and now live in a country house near Abergavenny in
South Wales. His leisure interests and hobbies include gardening,
reading, listening to classical music and driving his classic
car.