Chris was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia in 1957 and joined the Rhodesian Army in 1976 and served with 3 Commando in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) for 3 years. He was then offered a farming job in the country’s Lowveld; however, the army refused to countenance a waiver of call-ups, so he attested into the British South Africa Police and spent the remaining 14 months of the bush war as a PATU (Police Anti-Terrorist Unit) stick leader.