'Brian Clouston was born in 1925 in Brisbane and educated at The Southport School before joining the RAAF where he trained as a pilot. After the war he completed a commerce degree at the University of Queensland and began work at McLeod's Bookshop which had been established by his great-uncle, Alexander McLeod, and which his late father had owned. He saw the possibility of expanding the business by publishing locally written books for Queensland secondary schools to compete with the mainly British imports then widely in use.' (Introduction 34)