Fynn is the pen name of Sydney "Sid" George Hopkins, who was born in Poplar, London on March 26, 1919, and died in Somerset on July 3, 1999. He was a student and later a staff member at Finchden Manor, a now-defunct reform school in Tenterden, Kent, as described in the book "Mr Lyward's Answer."

Sid Hopkins spent the last years of his life living in Taunton, Somerset, England.