A life of adventure, travel, and zest for new opportunities.
John Young first left England, at 10 days old, for Sierra Leone with his missionary parents in 1934. After a childhood spent between Africa, the Yorkshire moors, and English boarding schools, he set off at 17 alone for New Zealand to be a forester and then to university, paying his way with an assortment of jobs from boatbuilder to wharfie to postman. Pursuing a career on the stage was somehow combined with completing an MA degree, as John energetically threw himself into working out where to live, what to do, and who to love. Marriage, a return to England to take a degree at Oxford, and starting a family, were followed by a move to South Australia and an academic career.
Through all this, there were always wooden boats. A leaky skiff held together with pitch, old rope and a father’s love. Summers spent making himself useful to owners of other boats. A boat to sail as a young couple in New Zealand; a sloop built in the backyard and sailed amongst the Fijian islands mapping ancient fortifications; the 100-foot sail training ship, One and All, built with community perseverance and now gracing the waters of South Australia. Boats built with unique Tasmanian timbers, after John and his wife moved to Franklin to establish a school of wooden boatbuilding and helped a town recover its remarkable maritime identity.
At 85, John looks back on the many choices made and turns taken in his life with some pride in his achievements as well as regret at his failures-and still wants to build another boat.
Dr John Young is the author of Australia’s Pacific Frontier (1967), Adventurous Spirits (1984), A Touch of Magic: The Building of the One and All (1984), Sustaining the Earth (1990) and numerous articles on New Zealand, Australian, Maritime and Pacific History, environmental issues and the educational value of wooden boatbuilding.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Glossary
Chapter 1: The Pig and the Crocodile
Chapter 2: “A Most Likeable Scoundrel?”
Chapter 3: “Un-gentlemanly sentimentalities”
Chapter 4: Youth at Risk
Chapter 5: Actor, Sailor, Boat builder, Failure?
Chapter 6: The Beginning of the getting of wisdom
Chapter 7: “If this be Love indeed, Tell me how much”
Chapter 8: The Challenges of Reality
Chapter 9: Boats, Teaching, Dreaming spires, and Babies
Chapter 10: The course of true love never did run smooth
Chapter 11: Building a Career
Chapter 12: Babes in the Wood
Chapter 13: Adelaide History and the South Seas
Chapter 14: Midlife Complexity
Chapter 15: One and All
Chapter 16: “Earth might be fair and all men glad and wise”
Sobre o autor
At 17, after a childhood spent between West Africa, the Yorkshire moors, and an English boarding schools, John set off alone for New Zealand to be a forester and then to university, paying his way with an assortment of jobs from boatbuilder to wharfie to postman. He eventually studied at Oxford and settled on an academic career in history and environmental studies at the University of Adelaide. Later, he and his wife Ruth moved to Tasmania to establish the boatbuilding school that has now become the Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on New Zealand, Australian, Pacific and maritime history, environmental issues, and the educational value of wooden boatbuilding.Mais ebooks do mesmo autor(es) / Editor
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