Ross Campbell studied English literature and classics at Melbourne University before winning a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University where he continued his study of literature. (For a time he was supervised by C. S. Lewis at Magdalen College.) During World War II Campbell served with the RAF and the RAAF as a navigator and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Campbell married Ruth Seale, an Australian reporter whom he met in 1945 while she was working in Fleet Street, London for the Australian Consolidated Press. In 1946 Campbell took up a position with the Sydney Morning Herald's New York bureau and later returned to work in the Sydney office.
It was back in Australia that Campbell began the weekly columns for which he would become best known. His affectionate portrayals of family life in suburban Australia appeared in the Australian Women's Weekly and the Sunday Telegraph throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Campbell also wrote on broader subjects for the Bulletin.
