David Catford was born in the mid-sixties, the fourth child and first son of an Australian sheep and wheat farming family. He was educated at Booleroo Centre Primary and High Schools, and Saint Peters College, Adelaide. He returned home to the farm in 1982, in the midst of a country wide drought. Fortunately, the farm enjoyed some great years for the rest of that decade. In the 1990s he married and had three children, all at a time when things were changing forever in rural Australia: deregulation of grain markets, and the ten year long ‘Millenium Drought’ ripped small country communities apart. He began writing poetry as a way to combat his feelings of depression, and after some years saw them as a story of his life. He now lives a semi-retired rural life.
This poetic book tells the story of David, a farmer born in 1960s Australia who was expected to carry on his family’s traditions on the land. We follow his life from birth to an imagined death, spanning a turbulent time when small rural communities across Australia collapsed.David’s plans are up...