The author was born and raised in New Zealand, joining the NZ Army at 16 in order to run away from home. Afterwards, he roamed around Queensland Australia on construction sites before heading off to London via Johannesburg. In South Africa he stopped over and hitchhiked around before heading up to Rhodesia, and subsequently found work managing a tobacco farm. The farm lay inside the war zone and two years later, after several incidents, he joined the BSA Police where he was involved in the fighting between the government forces and nationalist insurgents until the ceasefire in December 1979. He was awarded the highest police gallantry award. Subsequently, he has mined in Tasmania, rose to senior management in a retail chain in Queensland and Victoria and has been running his own businesses for the past 20 years in Queensland. Currently he is writing and running a small business in Queensland.