Fred Abbott was born on July 5th, 1941 in the small town of Nelson, Lancashire, England to Eva and Jack Abbott, a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer. In his teen years he attended Nottingham Technical College before moving with his parents to Germany at the age of 16. There he met his future wife, Christine, also the child of an RAF Officer. He and Christine returned to England a few years later where Fred began studying physics at Leicester University. They were married in 1962 and had their first child Mark, in 1964.