|
Originally a country boy, I came to the city with my parents during World War 2. I left school at 15 to work for three years as a copy boy and later cadet journalist on a Sydney newspaper. But I did not like city life and returned to the bush where I worked on some of the vast cattle stations. I also did a bit of droving and horse-breaking. The latter trade was my part time hobby for the following 45 years. Western novels were very popular in the bush but authors who did not know their subjects were treated as jokes. That made me very conscious of correct details when I started writing free-lance articles for various magazines. Mostly I wrote about horses but occasionally wrote a few historical articles on cavalry themes. I always liked good western fiction and was most impressed by the work of Alan LeMay and Louis Lamour.
When I married I moved to the city and worked as a Customs officer but still kept a few contacts in the bush, slipping away when I could for some riding ,cattle work and shooting.
I moved to Canberra where the city and the bush were side by side and worked a lot with horses in my spare time. I am also a dowser and spent many hours in a variety of dowsing jobs but again they were mostly to do with horses.
My Customs work took me to Japan and the Far East for three years and I used to contribute articles for Australian magazines. Later I wrote for horse magazines in UK and USA as well as Australia. In 1981 My non-fiction book "The Bush Horseman" was published and I contributed later to an anthology of working horse stories. The shrinking magazine market eventually forced me to look around for new outlets and I turned to fiction.
|