PETER SPENCE was born in Goulburn, a country town in New South Wales and lived there until he went to Teachers College in Sydney. His teaching career lasted 50 years during which he taught quite a few subjects but Mathematics and English were his specialties. Most of his teaching was in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. For several years he also marked a set of exams which was a part of the enrolment process for Queensland Universities. While marking these tests he became aware that some promising students were receiving poor results. Together with another teacher he started Education Support Programmes and wrote two books that assisted students to succeed in these tests. These books were produced for 20 years until the structure of Education across Australia was uni ed. In all he wrote six educational books, an Assignment Writing Computer package and Smart Lab, a Literacy and Numeracy remedial computer package that is widely used in Australia as well in other countries.