Peter Calder was born, without surgical intervention, in the last year of WW2. He grew up, very slowly it would seem, in a town called Brisbane. He was sent, at great parental cost and with little visible result, to a proper school. There he developed a liking for written composition but thought it a shame to waste the English language on examination papers.

          His life-long ambition to become a drover was frustrated by the imposition of further education. He spent some of the best years of his delinquency as a jackeroo, dagging sheep, and thereafter, most unexpectedly, acquired even more education that allowed him to call himself a “veterinary surgeon”.

          He did “time”, imprisoned in private practice, before wandering further afield. He worked as a vet in the UK and as a teacher in Russia. By now, an incurable Slavophile, he dreams of returning  Russia but meanwhile, continues to earn his living here in Australia.