Raymond Briggs was born in Wimbledon, London, England, to parents Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900–1971), a milkman, and Ethel Bowyer (1895–1971), a former lady's maid-turned-housewife, who married in 1930, his other known relatives are: an adoptive paternal grandmother (his father's step-mother), his maternal grandparents, and two maternal uncles who died during childhood.