[1] Born in the inner Sydney suburb of Balmain, Thwaites left school at the age of 13 and originally worked in the clothing industry.
[9] She later recalled: he wouldn't hear of my being an actress any more, so with great regret I left the career I really loved... we travelled all over the world.
[10]In 1938, Thwaites and his wife left for England via the Pacific Islands and Panama Canal, researching material for novels.
According to a 1933 interview: He deplored the presentation abroad of such films as On Our Selection, Harmony Row, The Sentimental Bloke, and The Squatter's Daughter, in all of which there was at least one imbecile or half-wit.
The Efftee Studios in Australia were deserving of praise for their pioneering work, but surely it was possible to portray humour on the screen without associating it with lunacy.
[5]The Broken Melody was turned into an Australian film in 1938, directed by Ken G. Hall, who had made On Our Selection and The Squatter's Daughter.
[16] According to Ron Blaber (in the Australian Dictionary of Biography) although Thwaites was: "seen by critics as romantic and sentimental, his thirty-one adventure novels—characterized by themes of struggle and redemption—were immensely popular, particularly with lending libraries, and sold more than four million copies.