Desmond Frances Talbot Coke was born in London. His parents were Major-General John Talbot Coke and his wife, Charlotte, nee Fitzgerald. Charlotte Coke (1843–1922), was a journalist on women's magazines who also published advice books as ‘Mrs Talbot Coke’. He wrote adventure stories for boys and used the pen-name "Belinda Blinders". Perhaps Desmond's most famous book was “The Bending of the Twig” (Chapman & Hall, London, 1907). His declared aim in writing that book was “ to level destructive satire at the conventional school story, and on its ruins to erect a structure rather nearer to real life.”