Ray Smith spent the 1960s, his childhood years, in south London, where he developed his passion for buses and explored the complete London Transport system, but moved to Reading in the early 1970s. He attended Reading School and studied theology at Kings College, London. In 1980 he was created a deacon and was, in 1981, ordained a priest in the Church of England. Serving churches in Oxford, Wallingford and Tilehurst, he then moved to Haywards Heath, Sussex. With his lifelong interest in buses and their part in social history, he is a prolific photographer and archivist of transport subjects. He is also a philatelist and postal historian, with a special interest in the British Post Office.