I was a child of the forties in Tasmania.

This was a time of war and rationing. We wore handmade clothes and played with handmade toys. Schools were forbidding places with cold dreary classrooms, regimented lessons and too many kids crammed in.

Despite all this I had a joyous childhood growing up in a large and loving family. We lived surrounded by a wonderland of places in which to play. My siblings and I roamed free, wandering through bush, climbing trees and making cubbies.

We spent the school holidays at the shack near a beautiful, isolated beach. Here we swam, played and at night feasted on fresh fish round a campfire.

Family, friends, freedom and fun are all here in the collected recollections of my life as a Free Range Kid.