"Debbie" Darnton attended the Junior Technical School in Sunderland from 1923 to 1925, from where he then went on to Bede Collegiate Boys' School. In 1930 he gained a place at Armstrong College, Newcastle (University of Durham).

He was awarded his ordinary BSc in 1933, in Zoology and Geology (with Botany as a subsidiary subject), and the following year he gained honours in Zoology. He then spent a further year in the Department of Education at Armstrong getting his Diploma in the Theory and Practice of Teaching.

On leaving university in 1935, he taught at "various primary and seconday modern schools" in Sunderland until, in 1958, he was appointed to the staff of the South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys.

He retired at the end of the 1969/70 academic year.