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Australian Publisher accepts new book
11/11/2009 3:16:00 PM
by Valdemar (Val) R Wake
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| My Voyage around Spray with apologies to Cptn. Joshua Slocum in first stage of galley proofs |
Sid Harta Publisher Ptd Ltd of Glen Waverley, Victoria, has accepted Val Wake's manuscript for publication next year.
The work which has been nearly four years in production gives a brief out line of Wake's life but is more concerned with his interest in boats and his hero Joshua Slocum the first man to sail single handed around the world.
" It was not my intention to write a autobiography or even a memoir. I was more interested in demonstrating how people deal with testing times in their lives and how important the sea is in teaching us how to come to terms with the fragility of life.
' There is a sub-theme, it is the return of a prodigal son to his native land and his observations about life in small town Australia."
My Voyage Around Spray starts when the author was four and he first discovered boats. It quickly jumps to the Canadian Arctic where he took part in the 1971 Canadian North Pole expedition and then moves to England where he worked for the British Foreign Office.
Along the way Wake re-discovers his interest in boats and the epic voyage of Joshua Slocum.
It was while he was reading Slocum's book Sailing Alone Around the World that he discovered the small Australian coastal town of Port Macquarie. Slocum sailed past Port Macquarie in 1897 and records the passage in his book.
Val Wake and his Canadian born wife Lillian decided to explore Port Macquarie as a possible retirement bolt hole.
They moved from London to Port Macquarie in 1995 and have lived there ever since.
In Port Macquarie Wake became interested in the dynamics that made the town tick. After an absence of some 40 years Wake found that Australian attitudes and values had changed in ways that he had not anticipated.
He was particularly concerned about the introduction of the sea change movement and its affects on the local community.
"When we first came to Port Macquarie there was one set of traffic lights. Today there are more than 10 and counting. I'm not saying that development is wrong but when it is forced on a community at the expense of its quality of life then I think that there is something not right."
Wake did a lot research, some of it original work, examining Port Macquarie. He goes back to the penal settlement's roots and traces the stories of some of the settlements' earlier developers.
"I hope readers learn something about the human comedy in my book and gain a deeper understanding of the importance of our choices," says Wake.
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