Mike Burton was born in Bulawayo in 1944 and he grew up and schooled in the erstwhile Rhodesia. He qualified as a teacher at Rhodes University and went on to study further at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. From Oxford, Mike returned to teach in Rhodesia and was welcomed back to a raging bush war. With their three young children he and his wife, Noreen, decided to settle in South Africa where they both taught at St Peter's in Rivonia and then at Kingswood College in Grahamstown (now Makhanda). On the cricket field he was selected for the South African Schools XI and went on to play for Eastern Province when a student at Rhodes, and captained Oxford University. Mike is the author of a well-received series of Geography textbooks for secondary schools. Currently, he works with a small company of retired educators supporting rural and township schools around East London in South Africa's Eastern Cape province.