[2] From an early age, he resolved to be a writer and, in I Can Jump Puddles, he demonstrated an almost total recall of his childhood in Noorat.

The characters and places of his book are thinly disguised from real life: "Mount Turalla" is Mount Noorat, "Lake Turalla" is Lake Keilambete, the "Curruthers" are the Blacks, "Mrs. Conlon" is Mary Conlon of Dixie, Terang, and his best friend, "Joe", is Leo Carmody.

Marshall worked as an accountant at the Trueform Boot and Shoe Company, Clifton Hill, and later wrote about life in the factory in his novel How Beautiful are Thy Feet (1949).

Australian poet and contemporary, Hal Porter, wrote in 1965 that Marshall was: ... the warmest and most centralized human being ... To walk with ease and nonchalance the straight, straight line between appearing tragic and appearing willfully brave is a feat so complex I should not like to have to rake in the dark for the super-bravery to accomplish it.

[7] Marshall died on 21 January 1984, in a nursing home in Brighton East, Victoria, where he had been a resident for the previous two years.

[8] Adam Garnett won the 1982 Logie Award for Best Performance by a Juvenile, for his role as Alan Marshall in the series.