Eric Irvin

He enrolled in East Sydney Technical College classes in art and window display and worked in various department stores.

He battled for much of the depression years before gaining a post teaching art in Catholic girls' schools in the mid 1930s.

On 31 May 1940 he enlisted with the 7th Australian Divisional Signals and saw service in the Middle East and Papua New Guinea where he took part in the Kokoda Trail, Buna and Ramu Valley campaigns.

During this time he continued to write poetry and also wrote three local histories, Place of Many Crows (1953), The Murrumbidgee Turf Club (1960), and Early inland agriculture (1962), and edited a collection of articles written by anonymous contributors to the Wagga Wagga Advertiser and Riverine Reporter (1868–1875), Letters from the river (1959).

In 1979 he edited with an historical introduction, Walter Cooper's play Colonial experience which was first performed at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney, in 1868.