Following National Service in the Royal Air Force, which gave him material for his first novel, The Bear Garden, Michael Robson went up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. After some years as an instructor in English and drama he joined Angelia Television as a presenter/producer of features and documentaries. Historical research has always interested him, and his military studies of the First World War: Out There and Flypast, and of the second: The Fall of Singapore, The Battle of Arnehem, and Journey To A Victory, reached wide television audiences.

After producing and directing Cameron Country for BBCTV2, with the late, brilliant foreign correspondent James Cameron, Robson began a new career as a freelance writer/director of documentaries, and as a playwright for film, television and radio. His feature screenplays include The 39 Steps, The Water Babies and Holocaust 2000. He has contributed widely to BBC TV and ITV drama; and BBC radio has broadcast over fifty of his plays. Two were commissioned during his visit to Hong Kong and Macao and dealt with drug smuggling in the South China Sea.

Michael Robson lives and works in a seventeenth-century cottage in Wiltshire, England; where his chief companions are his wife, two dogs, two cats, two horses and his word processor, which knowns him best of all.