David grew up in Leicestershire; and after a brief interlude at Aberystwyth University, he started teaching there in 1985. He began as a primary school teacher, progressing to Maths and finally working with those with learning difficulties in school. He ended up joining the Leicestershire Autism Outreach Team and was professional leader of the Team at the time of his departure for France in 2001.
He now lives in the south of France and works in a big mansion house in the countryside. Since 2005, he has been trying to help his teams do their best with 90 children and young adults with a mixture of different challenges who keep them on their toes in an Institut Médico-Educatif! Between 2016 and 2020 he joined a team (SESSAD) that works with 41 youngsters from 3 to 20 years of age, mostly in the French education system but also at home with families, so he works a lot on going out into the community and, for the older ones, discovering adulthood. From 2020 until 2022, he was a member of a Pôle de Compétence et de Prestations Externalisé working with adults and adolescents finding their feet in adulthood. He is now responsible for sharing, coordinating and supporting good practice within the charity, APAJH81, for whom he works
He was a tutor on the WebAutism course since its inception in 2002 until 2017, when he joined the distance Autism Children course and the master's course in 2020 where he continues to enjoy the challenges faced alongside Birmingham students.
His five grown-up children live in Nottingham, Madrid, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Albi; the latter three as students