Bill Guy, born in Liverpool, England, spent three years in the Royal Navy before taking up journalism as a career. He gained experience as a reporter, sports writer and sub-editor on weekly papers and provincial dailies before joining the national Daily Express where he worked for twelve years as a sub-editor and features writer.
In 1968 he came to Adelaide with his wife and three children, joined the editorial staff of The Advertiser, and for many years was its foreign editor, weekly columnist and occasional feature writer.
By now an Australian citizen, he took early retirement in 1989, planning to travel as a freelance journalist in South America, but The Advertiser invited him to return in a new role, as cadet trainer and editorial writer. This delayed his definitive retirement for five years. Since then he has published a political biography, A Life on the Left (1999) - the story of Clyde Cameron - and a novel, Smokescreens and Searchlights (2003).