Ripples of Danger

I live on a subtropical island in Moreton Bay about an hour from Brisbane, Australia. It’s a nice place with good people. Born in the Blue Mountains of Australia, I was whipped off to New Zealand at the age of four, after my mother had one row too many with her mother-in-law. They were a pair of feisty women. I was 77 years of age before I returned to live in the country of my origin. I am therefore, Australian by birth and a New Zealander by culture, a fearsome state of confusion which has led me to believe that literature is my safest nationality. Did I come back to Australia to live out of yearning for the place? Not really. We, my wife and I, came here because our three surviving children had come here to live and work and because the climate is warmer. I trained as a geologist, but that was a wrong turn. I became a school teacher, which I loved, and followed for just over 20 years at primary, secondary and tertiary levels until at 49 I became a professional actor working in film, television, stage and radio on both sides of the Tasman Sea. All that time I wrote. I’m not very good at doing two things at once so writing came a poor second to the job and providing for a family, but now – now I am retired and I can follow my heart’s desire – now, I can write every day. And I do. I live with my patient wife in a lovely little house on the island and do my best to enjoy life.