I was reading Siegfried Sassoon’s memoirs and in particular his descriptions of the front line around the time of the battle of the Somme, which are fantastic for their sensitivity and the way he captures the sunsets and the birds and notices things in the same way that i feel i would have noticed them … Read more
Within a few weeks of setting out to Europe from India, I was foaming milk in the ‘Cafe Dome’ in Selfridges, the famous department store on London’s Oxford Street. I’d never heard of it before i got the job there. When i was looking for it for my job interview i asked a couple of … Read more
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
I began writing my memories in this post, and i think i’ll put down some more though it is a very messy state right now. my first three years were at Farrer Primary, a small public (government) school in the newish suburb of Farrer, in Canberra’s south. My grandparents had lived there and mum in … Read more
At the hour of midnight on 1 January 2000 I was up a tree outside the Tate Modern, watching the fireworks shot from a barge in the Thames bursting through the smoke and London fog. I had become separated from my friends in jumping over a barrier to escape the crush of the crowds. Sadly, … Read more
One of my favourite times in London was circa 2000 when I lived in West Hampstead, at 13 Ravenshaw street, with Jula the bellydancer and her many cats and dogs. The window of my little first floor bedroom looked out over the garden onto a patch of wilderness and a railway line beyond, the metropolitan … Read more