Simon Murray CBE was born in Leicester in 1940 and joined the French Foreign Legion at age nineteen, serving in the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment for five years. He fought in the Algerian War against the Front de Liberation National and left the Legion in 1965.

He subsequently moved to Hong Kong where he pursued a career as a businessman. In 2004, Murray joined Pen Hadow to trek to the South Pole and became the oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported. He is married and has three children and six grandchildren. Legionnaire is his first book.