Early Life and Background
Keith Topping's parents were Thomas Topping (1918–1991) and Lily Lamb (b. 1920) and he has two older brothers, Terrence John (b. 1944) and Thomas Colin (b. 1948). Topping's family have Irish, Scottish, East Anglian (Snape, Suffolk, Great Yarmouth) and Cumbrian (Crosby-on-Eden) roots as well as North Eastern. He is a distant relative of the Morpeth landscape artist Thomas Bowman Garvie (1859–1944). Topping could be said to be following in a family tradition through his writing as his great- great-uncle was the Tyneside journalist and columnist Albert Elliott.
Topping attended Wharrier Street Infant and Junior school between 1968 and 1975 and Walker Comprehensive School between 1975 and 1982 leaving with an 'A' level in History and 6 'O' levels.
He worked for the Civil Service as an Administrative Officer in the, then, Department of Employment between 1983 and 2001 when he left to pursue a full-time freelance writing career.
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