Barrie Samuel Barnes was raised by his grandparents on a North Hull Housing Estate and after leaving school at the age of 15 with no qualifications he spent the next 18 years working in a variety of unskilled jobs. After marrying and having three children he took a firm grip of his future by acquiring a string of O and A Levels in quick succession by part-time study. He then enrolled into full-time education at Leeds and Hull University, earning a BA (hons) and a Master's Degree. He also gained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education at Leeds University prior to entering the teaching profession in 1982, he realised that in teaching he had found his true vocation in life and his teaching career lasted 26 years. The young Barrie Samuel Barnes would sit at his grandfather's knee listening to stories of the Western Front and it was this which inspired his interest in military history. In 1990 his first book on military history was published on the Hull 92nd Brigade (Hull Pals) in the Great War, in which his grandfather served. Barrie started interviewing veterans of both world wars in the mid-1980s and since then has amassed a large archive of first-hand accounts which have appeared in all of his books. During his working life he has completed numerous other books on both world wars and continues to do so today.

He retired in 2007 to a little market town in East Yorkshire where he continues to work on a number of manuscripts for the future.