Ephraim John Burford was born in London in 1905. In Burford's own words (at the beginning of an interview in 1997) this was to a "comfortable middle class background, liberal tendencies (father big wig in local Liberal Party, against votes for women, a jeweller, parents Jewish). About 14 or 15 I met one of my father's employees, who was a rabid socialist, a member of the Labour League of Youth, and I became a socialist, much to the disgust of my father. I didn't become active until Gollancz founded the Left Book Club".

In July 1936 Burford and his wife Nancy motored to Barcelona for the Olympics and became stuck there when the military uprising broke out on the 19th July. Burford took a great interest in this and broadcast English translations of the news from the government Radio Barcelona before he and his wife were able to leave on Friday 24th July. "For the first time I became involved with Communists. When I came back to England I was unsettled, became involved with medical aid, etc, and finally worked my way into a nervous breakdown. War was becoming imminent, and I was not looking forward to it, so we took a world trip. We got as far as Cape Town, and went to Johannesburg which we liked, very friendly. Because I'd been in Spain I became a little bit of a celebrity with left wing groups. This was 1937."

E. J. Burford died on 22 July 1997.