[1] In 1939 he was founding editor of the New Zealand Listener, a widely read magazine with a national monopoly on publishing radio and television programs.
[1] At the age of 18 he volunteered for the South African war and on his return he won a scholarship to study for the Presbyterian ministry from the Synod of Otago and Southland.
At The Press he worked with writers such as Ngaio Marsh, M. H. Holcroft and Walter D'Arcy Cresswell.
While he was editor of the North Canterbury Gazette in Rangiora, he contested the Hurunui electorate in the 1935 election as an independent candidate.
[2] In 1938, Joe Heenan, under-secretary of internal affairs, appointed him editor for the forthcoming centennial publications.