A Potted History

Born in Maidstone, Kent, England in 1953. Chained manacled and exported to Tasmania at the tender age of three. The only thing notable about the trip was that the ageing ship's refrigeration broke down in the Med so we reeked of rotting meat for weeks. We were Ten Quid Poms and the ship was on her last voyage and legs. The rudder fell off and we went round in circles for three days.

At sixteen and a half with the boldness of youth I marched into the Launceston Examiner clutching as few snaps of my mother and my dog and walked out with a cadetship. Learnt the business from the ground up...literally. I started off cleaning floors and then spilling chemicals on them again.

Three years later scored a job on the Age. Great fun on a great paper. Three years later (things seem to run in threes where I'm concerned) met a posh english knitwear designer and (as most of my relatives in England were expiring at a great rate) resigned and went to England supposedly for a couple of years with dreams of taking Fleet St. by storm.

Instead ended up staying for almost seven years and did every thing else BUT take Fleet St. by storm. In fact The Street remained totally oblivious to my presence. We lived in a Jacobean manor and employed 100 women to make handmade knitwear and we flogged it to very rich Americans and Japanese. After three years( there it is again) of living in cuckoo land she ran off with the agent which left me on the bones of my bum.

Moved into a friends cottage. He was the squire of the village and we spent lots of time consuming huge amounts of cider, reading poetry and trying to find his eccentric mother who kept getting lost in the manor.

I ended up painting and decorating whore houses and wealthy lords country retreats, selling dodgy pirated tapes and cane furniture and cheap novels on London markets and endless other things to survive. Met my now wife, got married (only because her parents wanted to have a party) went on honeymoon with my mother in law and we came back to Aus. Mother in law wisely stayed behind.

Started working for the Australian in Melbourne when Murdoch decided to start up the Daily Sun in Brisbane. They said "go north young man". So we did supposedly for three or four years.

Saw the writing on the wall in '87, busted out and went freelance. My wife had got sick of me getting angry and ramming the washing machine with the car when I got home.

Worked for the Age and the S.M.H a lot of Packer magazines, A.P. strung for English papers, the Canadian Government any amount of mags and papers that numerous that without getting out the old diaries I could never remember them all.

Started yarn farming and writing and shooting some of my own stuff which leads us to today where I pretty much do what I want - except weddings, babies and food. Love eccentrics and their lives and writing about them. They used to call me 'The Angle Man on the Age' and the 'Minister for Silly Ideas at News Limited' or in moments of stress 'You long great streak of duck-shit'. I used to get the 'too hard basket stuff' and was expected to get something publishable out of it.

I have two beautiful little girls 12 and 9. Like my peace and quiet. Get pleasure out of camping, fishing and stuffing around at home in my little jungle and try to avoid answering the 'phone as much as possible to the constant annoyance of my long suffering but ever lovin' missus.