Miles Kington - Early Life

Early Life

He was born in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland, where his father Bill, a soldier, was then posted. Subsequently, his father ran the Border Brewery in Wrexham. His mother was American. Kington was educated at Bilton Grange, a prep school in Rugby, then later Trinity College, Glenalmond, a boys' independent boarding school in Glenalmond, Scotland (now Glenalmond College). Among his contemporaries was the future journalist Alexander Cockburn. During a gap year, then rare, Kington worked as a translator in New York, and lived in Greenwich Village. He then studied Modern Languages (French and German) at Trinity College, Oxford. After graduation he spent some time writing with Terry Jones, an Oxford contemporary but the teaming did not click, and Jones was in reality waiting for his friend Michael Palin to graduate.