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The Heald Report . . .
Number 3 23 JUNE 2003
Australia was wonderful as always.
Penny and I were there for three weeks this time, returning a week or so ago. I
had two travel articles to write for the Independent on Sunday and Penny, being
Adelaide born and bred, had family and friends to catch up with.
The first Independent piece was a short voyage on
the mighty river Murray on board a restored nineteenth century wood-burning
paddle steamer called the Marion. This was sponsored by Rockford Wines, a
"boutique winery" in the Barossa valley so it was
not only a nostalgic journey through wild country adorned by squadrons of
pelicans, it was also a feast of fine wines and exotic foods cooked up by three
chefs in the galley on a solid fuel stove. A fantastic experience. Read all
about it in the Indy before too long I hope.
The second assignment was a bush walk through the
forest in the country near Toowoomba about an hour and a half west of Brisbane
with an enthusiastic local bushwalker Greg Rawkins who had bicycled
across Oz and the USA and
ridden a 50cc motor-scooter from London to Brisbane (including an ocean hop from
Calcutta to Fremantle). Great bloke and we had a good walk. The town of Toowoomba
was fascinating too and the whole area agreeably off the beaten track. Again,
read it in the Indy.
We had a busy time throughout and it was
particularly good to catch up with the two mature students in Adelaide whose
biographical projects I have been supervising via-e-mail for the past year and
also to spend time in the Barossa Valley
plotting the inaugural Barossa Literary Festival. This looks set to take
place in September 2004 with me in the role of international something-or-other
as well as the Festivals' Visiting Writer-in-residence. Watch this space.
And so back to the UK and straight to London for
various meetings including one with Michael Motley who is the latest and I hope
last in a depressingly longish line of Literary Agents with whom I have tried
working over the past eighteen
months or more. Michael is at the Old Vicarage, Tredington, Tewkesbury, Glos
GL20 7BP (01684 276390) and we're hatching plots!
It was good to get home and find that my travel
piece on Cornwall was in the July issue of the Tatler, causing
predictable
mutterings and preenings. Also a piece in the current Literary Review. And it
was especially pleasing to be given a finished copy
of my anthology of After Dinner Stories by Sue Bradbury of the Folio Society. As
always the Folio have done a terrific production job and the illustrations by
my friend Paul Cox are an absolute treat.
Tim Heald
June 2003
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