Billy Childish was born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent, and left school at sixteen. After working in Chatham Naval Dockyard as an apprentice stonemason, he went on to study painting, which proved to be unsatisfactory.

Billy Childish was diagnosed dyslexic at the age of 28. Despite this, he has published more than thirty poetry collections and three novels. He has recorded over one hundred albums on a variety of independent record labels and exhibited paintings all over the world.