You Could Be Prime Minister One Day Son: Memoir of a Baby-Boomer

This is more than a self-indulgent legacy document by a post-war baby boomer. It tells the life story of Dennis born in a mental hospital and how he grew into a man under the tutelage of his father, his Uncle Ted, Mr Will and best friends Robbie and Dave. He speaks frankly about mental health issues and religion, sport and the gaining of wisdom. All is told with great humour.
He owes his musical ability to his mother. Her love however lacks consistency due to her fight with bipolar disorder and he becomes estranged from her. He forms a close bond with his father. He admires the way his father kept the family together through some hard years. Through his experiences and the contemplative space available through retirement he connects with the sacrifices that have been made along the way in his growth to maturity.
Courage was gained in the craft of cricket taught to him under the tutelage of Uncle Ted who played one game for an Australian team against Jarman’s bodyline side of 1932/33. The Australian team contained Don Bradman and Vic Richardson amongst other notables. As an opening batsman Uncle Ted taught Dennis to respect but fervently dislike fast bowlers.
His father and Aunt Joy worked for ASIO and he called Ron Richards, the key player in the Petrov Affair, Uncle Ron. He was a bigger than life character that would refer to the young Dennis as ‘the man that mastered Huntingdale.’
His career over forty six years as a geologist took him all over Australia and into New Guinea and New Zealand. It was anything but plain sailing but there were triumphs along the way which included oil and gas discoveries.
This memoir is his first full length book. It is said we all have one book in us. I suspect Dennis has many. He has been writing short stories and poems in his writing group, the Wynnum Creative Writers, for several years. He told me that this monument had to be written before he could be freed to write anything else.
You will be all the richer for reading this fast-paced narrative. The book is divided into four parts, Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood and Maturity but is more emotively written than factually researched and for that reason is regarded more as a memoir than an autobiography. It contains the over-arching themes of mental health, philosophy, religion, parental love and sacrifice, love of his wife and life in its totality through a series of sketches. The style of writing is similar to Hugh Lunn and William McInnes.
All lives are touched with drama and sadness. No one escapes ‘scot-free’ and unscathed. Dennis’s is no different. It is how the individual grows and matures through the resultant wounds and scars. The transitions between each phase of his growth are marked with dramatic events, namely abandonment by his mother, reunion with his mother, debilitating stroke of his wife, death of his best friend in dramatic circumstances and career misfortunes.
Laugh and cry along with Dennis in this amusing but deeply reflective memoir that demonstrates that out of struggle and hardship with the right mentors, love and friendship, the heart endures and life blossoms.