Mr Sutton was born in 1892 in Scotby near Carlisle and was educated at St Bees School and Queen's College, Oxford. For a time he acted with a repertory company and then taught English at Edinburgh Academy and then in Hammersmith. He started his literary career while still a schoolmaster writing under his own name and also writing detective fiction under the pen name of Anthony Marsden. He broadcast on 'country matters' and then reading some of his own pieces and he wrote many plays for the BBC. Eventually, he was able to return to his native Cumberland where he bought an old school under Skiddaw and converted it into a house. He was a keen fellwalker and climber and a member of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club. He loved Cumberland and was an authority on Lakeland customs and dialects as is evident in his novels. He died in 1959 and is buried in Scotby