Nicholas Temperley Watson Darke, was born in Wadebridge, Kernow, and was raised, and later moved back to Porthcothan, where his family have lived for four generations, after moving there from Padstow. He was educated at St Merryn Primary School and Truro Cathedral School, from where he was expelled for blowing up the cricket pitch, with a sugar and weed killer bomb. He then attended Newquay Grammar School. Nick's aversion to empire, and the English ruling class, began at boarding school during the sixties, where he experienced sadistic institutionalized bullying, and extremely poor sanitary conditions.