My adventures Down Under 

My earliest recollections of Australia are threefold. First, the world map on the wall of my primary school class. I’ve always had a love of maps and this huge ‘island’ parked in the bottom right corner always caught my eye. Second, the 1960s TV programme The Flying Doctors. If a country was so large doctors had to travel by aircraft rather than Rover P5, the place simply had to be special.

And third, my early ’60s Dinky model of a Holden EJ. Even then it struck me that this car was properly Australian. Although Holden was part of General Motors, these were the days when a Vauxhall was not an Opel, and a Cortina was not a Taunus. They came from an era when cars represented their countries, before the days of international homogenisation.

Even aged nine, all this fascinated me and I knew then that Australia was a place I would have to visit one day. Little did I know then how special the place was going to become to me.