Following an excellent education at Hastings Grammar School, Charles Wright graduated with honours from the University of Life and pursued a career as an insurance underwriter with Prudential Assurance Company Ltd. Coming from a sporting background, where his mother was an international swimmer, selected for the Tokyo 1940 Olympics (alas, cancelled due to WWII) and his father was a Minor Counties cricketer for Bedfordshire and an amateur footballer for Hendon, he was always going to become a sportsman and played football for Tottenham and Brighton at youth level, before turning to bowls, a sport at which he has excelled.