Ian Laval began his career as a journalist on a local newspaper in the north of England, joining Reuters and becoming correspondent in Pakistan in 1966. As Reuters' Lagos correspondent from
1967 to 1969 he covered the Nigerian civil  (Biafra) war. Back in his native Cumbria in northern England he was a radio journalist for BBC local radio for several years from 1970. He has a degree in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.

In 1970 Ian Laval started a furniture-making and timber business at Meadowbank Farm, Curthwaite, Cumbria, northwest England, restoring the ancient thatched, clay/cruck house there.

He sold the house in 1999 to go to the Pacific Northwest to begin long-distance sailing and continues furnituremaking in a new workshop on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.