Michael Morden Hall was born in Cape Town in 1942 and educated at schools in Swaziland, South Africa, Kenya and England. He read Modern Languages at Cambridge University from 1961 to 1964.

After work as a teacher and in commercial public relations, in 1969 Hall entered the Central Office of Information, Tours Division, which, on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, organised and accompanied the visits to Brítain of local leaders selected by UK diplomatic missions overseas. In 1973 he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Conference Department which organised the overseas travel of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and the attendance of UK delegations at major conferences overseas. He was at the Rhodesia Conference at Lancaster House in 1979 and subsequently out in Salisbury.

Hall entered the Diplomatic Service in 1984 and had postings to The Hague, Frankfurt and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and worked in the FCO's Central America Department and West Indian and Atlantic Department. He retired in 2002.