• Born in Adelaide late in 1947
• Attended Westbourne Park and Mitcham Primary schools
• Attended Unley High school
• Vacation work renovating the old Aclare Mine in the Mt Lofty Ranges
• Attended University of Adelaide
• Vacation work at Kookynie and Kambalda in W.A.
• Graduated with B.Sc. (Hons) in Economic Geology and almost immediately married Kaye in late 1969
• Started work as a geologist/geochemist with Western Mining Corporation in late 1969
• Worked all around Australia including being a team member in the Olympic Dam, Stawell, Benambra, Ernest Henry, Yandan & Mt Ringwood discoveries
• Worked overseas in the Philippines, Fiji, New Caledonia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Laos, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ireland, U.S.A., Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso
• In 1998 my wife & I moved to Hong Kong where I worked as a kindergarten teacher teaching English to Chinese children
• In 2005 I returned to Melbourne and retired from paid work
• Still married to Kaye & currently volunteering at both a Mainly Music and a playgroup in Diamond Creek

Life has been very interesting and exciting:

• Near the Dartmouth Dam I have crawled onto a large tiger snake and had its head hovering just a few centimetres from my nose
  

• I have been tracked by a large wolf while alone in Kazakhstan

• In Uzbekistan I was captured by Islamic terrorists and later released without incident after sharing a sheep with them
  

• At Benambra in the Australian Alps I have fallen over a cliff

• Near General Santos in the southern Philippines I was targeted for a kidnapping but the kidnappers could not work out where my gun was (I did not have one)
  

• In Kazakhstan I have watched a Soviet rocket launch into orbit

• Near Boulia in Queensland had a fierce snake (desert taipan) between my feet while I cracked a rock next to its head

• In Moscow I attended the Bolshoi Theatre with the Russian and Chinese leaders to see Swan Lake (the equivalent of a Royal Command Performance) performed by the Bolshoi Ballet
  

• In northern Laos I sat on an unexploded bomb from the Vietnam War in a formal meeting with a village chief (many large bombs lined the central street through the village for use as seats)

• I have undertaken successful industrial espionage over a new gold discovery in Queensland

• I have been bitten on the top of my rubber boot by a large and angry brown snake, even though the ground was covered with snow and it should have been hibernating
  

• I have eaten a meal in the same restaurant as Australia’s richest man at that time (Lang Hancock)

• I was nearly shot in Laos when I blundered into a large opium crop ready for harvesting.