Alan was born on 21 November 1928 in Hampstead, London to London born parents Cecil and Agnes nee Pollitzer and he had two younger siblings David and Anne. Their father worked as an architectural technologist and in 1939 the family lived at 24 Arundel Road in Eastbourne where they employed a governess, cook and parlourmaid.

Alan joined the Navy as an engineering cadet in 1946 when he was seventeen. He died aged eighteen at Cambridge Military hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire and his death certificate states that his cause of death was Tuberculous Meningitis.