Patrick Rohde was born in 1934, the youngest of three children from an army family. His father Robert Hawkins Rohde was serving in the Sudan at the time so his mother Monica was living with her father Brigadier David Forster at Catterick camp in Yorkshire. David Forster was an early friend and supporter of Frank Buchman in the inter-war years. The Rohde family was evacuated to the family farm in Sussex in the war years, and Patrick attended prep school in Horsham and secondary education at St Edward's school in Oxford, where he also attended Oriel college after national service with the royal Sussex regiment in UK and Germany. At Oriel he studied history and later one year of theology. It was in Oxford that he became increasingly associated with the work of MRA.
Patrick taught history at Sherborne prep school for seven years, English in Egypt at a school for the Egyptian Suez Canal pilots’ children for two years; and, after certificate of education course at Southampton, he taught at Hayward Junior High School in Lancashire. Following his grandfather's earlier connection with Papua New Guinea, Patrick went to teach there in 1972, where he was Head of the Social Science Department at Kerevat Senior High School near Rabaul for four years. This time included marriage to Barbara and many other adventures. On returning to Britain in 1976, they taught at St. David's College in Llandudno, before retiring in 1994.
After retirement Barbara and Patrick have lived in Llandudno, lately in a complex of retirement flats.