When i reached the end of my schooling, at Canberra Grammar, i had completely lost any taste for academia. My chance at being a star student had probably been lost during my years at Karabar High, when i learned a lot about life and the rougher edges perhaps of Australian society, but nothing much about … Read more
It started with another stinky tube ride. Everyone was loaded up with bags, sleepy and mongy, we caught the nasty-o northern line, half empty that Saturday morning. Stew and Nick had big Aussie backpacks and assorted other bits. I’d packed the previous night whilst half asleep and decided that I didn’t really need anything to … Read more
I remember the first time i saw the pacific north west from the window of my Alaskan airlines flight from LA. I was 21 and had just flown over from Australia. I had a fantastic view out the window, and was watching the magnificent volcanic mountains glide past when Mt St Helens came into view, … Read more
I arrived in the UK the second time, from Australia via a month or so in America visiting my best friend Braden in and around Seattle in October 1999 with the plan to head down to Cornwall and find work. I only got as far as Torquay where I discovered a really cool backbackers and … Read more
Nana used to tell me about her great grandfathers, Samuel Downing who owned a steel works in Birmingham in the second half of the 19th century and got rich, and James Williams who was a cornishman who worked for Richard Tangye’s engineering firm also in Birmingham and apparently according to family lore “invented the crane” … Read more
I was reading about fathers who write memoirs that barely mention their own family. I don’t often write too much about mine because it feels private and personal and also that is the part of my life that contains my strongest and most complex emotions so it’s the hardest subject matter to write about. But … Read more