He wrote a series of bestselling memoirs of his life there, beginning with A Year in Provence Born in Brighton, Sussex, the youngest of three children, Mayle and his parents moved to Barbados in the aftermath of World War II , where his father was transferred as a Colonial Office employee. Mayle returned to England after leaving school at 16 in Barbados. His first job in was as a trainee at Shell Oil , based in its London office. It was there that he discovered that he was more interested in advertising than oil and he wrote to David Ogilvy , the head of the advertising agency that had the Shell account at that time, asking for a job.
Ogilvy offered him a job as a junior account executive, but Mayle's interest was more on the creative side of the business and he subsequently became a copywriter in based in its New York City office. In due course another agency, Papert Koenig, Lois, poached him from Ogilvy and sent him back to London to head up the creative team in its UK office, where one of his colleagues was Alan Parker.
When the US parent hit trouble in the mids, he and a colleague bought the London operation. They developed the business with accounts that included Watneys, Olivetti, and Sony and after five years, it was bought by BBDO , one of the top American agencies. He then commuted between the U. A advertising slogan written by Mayle for Wonderloaf Bread was used as a football chant by supporters of Tottenham Hotspur , and became the basis of the song " Nice One Cyril ".
By , Mayle had had enough of advertising and transatlantic commuting, and quit the business to write full-time. Mayle started off by writing educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young people. He also penned, in collaboration with illustrator Gray Jolliffe , a series of humorous books about the character Wicked Willie, based upon a personification of the male organ. He relocated from Devon to the Luberon , southern France , in the late 80s but his plans to write a novel were overtaken by an account of life in his new environment.
Several more books followed, which have been translated in more than twenty languages. He also wrote for magazines and newspapers. He died at the hospital near his home in January Source: [ 1 ].
