Michael Adams was born in Malaya in 1937 of English parents. His father was a rubber planter & his mother was a mezzo-soprano.

He spent most of his childhood in jungle surroundings near Ipoh & in the Usmbara Mountains of Tanganyika. At the age of 9 he began prep school in England. At 16 he entered the Falmouth school of art. At 20 he was accepted at the royal college of art in London.
Three years later as an A.R.C.A. & engraver he lectured at Makerere University Uganda beginning the graphics department. He taught for 5 years then became a full time painter in the three east African states basing himself in princess Lucy Bisereko's guest house near the Rubaga roundabout in Kampala.

Heather is the daughter of English parents. Her father worked as the adviser for church treasures for the archbishop of Canterbury and her mother was a teacher & champion fencer. Heather was educated at Croham Hurst & friends school, Saffron Walden & Homerton College Cambridge.

Heather met Adams in Nairobi, where she was teaching poetry to African children at the Nairobi primary school. After a dangerous courtship in Uganda, where Idi Amin was chopping up their friends, both decided it was time to leave Africa and plant trees for a peaceful future.

They chose the Seychelles islands in 1972 and were welcomed by Jimmy Mancham, the chief Minister at that time. They still live at Anse Poules Bleues in a wooden plantation house and have two children Tristan & Alyssa - 65 chickens, 16 cats, 2 horses, 5 dogs, 40 ducks, 2 giant tortoises & a million fish in a jungle pond, guarded by a greedy little bittern (heron).