Godley was born in
Chester Street in
Belgravia, and educated at
Arnold House School in
St John's Wood in London, followed by
Eton College and
Balliol College, Oxford, developing an interest in
horse racing and
betting at both latter places, and rowing in the first VIII at Eton and the university second boat,
Isis, at Oxford. After serving in the
Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War, he returned to his studies, and graduated with an
MA in 1948. He married twice. He married Penelope Anne Reyne in 1943. They had two children, Christopher (born 1 January 1945) and another son, who died aged three days. He and Penelope divorced in 1949. In April 1951, he moved permanently to the family's estate,
Killegar House, in
Carrigallen,
County Leitrim. His father's fortunes had not flourished and he had been forced by circumstances to put Killegar on the market. The house was dilapidated, and had not been occupied for several years but he was determined to live there. He farmed the estate
organically from the 1950s. His second marriage was to an
Australian ex-spy and writer, Susan Lee Heazlewood, who was thirty-six years his junior, in 1981. They had one son, the Irish poet
Sean Godley (born 1981), before divorcing in 1989. He also had a daughter, Lisa. He died in
Cavan in August 2006. ==Wartime service==