[1][2] His interest in flora and the natural world saw him begin work at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens at the age of 14.
[3] After two and a half years there he went to work as a learner-gardener for a wealthy shipowner at East Boldon His first wife was Frances Jones (?-1967).
The wide open spaces gave him a sense of freedom: warm friendship with his mates imbued him with the confidence to explore the Australian working class milieu in his stories, and he determined to live out his life in this place of "glamor and independence".Family pressure took him back to England in 1927 — there was a crippled brother suffering from infantile paralysis — but the brief visit was disastrous due to his intense homesickness for Australia.
[5] An Aussie digger exiled to a shabby London rooming house lives and dies with no comfort other than the scent of smouldering eucalyptus leaves.
[13] He later worked as a gardner at Caulfield Grammar School until 1963, when he became a full-time writer; publishing also book reviews and journalism.