It’s hot. Just made a dash down from the Blue Mountains to drop my mother at the airport for a flight to Melbourne. That got me thinking of how much time I spent on planes in writing the Tom Wills biography. Most of those trips were to Victoria. I stayed at my parents’ home in Merlynston, wedged between Pentridge Gaol and Fawkner Cemetery. I spent weeks at a time in Melbourne taking a train into the city and then sitting myself down in the SLV and working. Typically I was there until the library closed (I think around 10 pm) - usually in the newspaper section meticulously going over every newspaper or periodical I thought might yield information. And as the last lights of the library went out I’d collect my luggage from the locker, walk down the steps past St. George and his Dragon and into the train station. Winter was the worst. But somehow, now, as I ponder those nights there is a certain romance. Or at least a sense that it was worth it.

Nothing could be more different from where I sit now. December in Sydney. I’ve popped back to my hospital to write this before I head back to the Blue Mountains. The room I sit in is long with the adornments of the nineteenth century. Indeed, I sit in the midst of a classic nineteenth century psychiatric asylum - Cumberland Hospital.

This room has writing memories for me.

Looking out the window I see sandstone buildings - some of the first convict constructions in the colony of NSW. Straight ahead is a clock tower and around me the buildings that made up the Old Female Factory.

I spent time here writing the Tom Wills biography. This room was my sanctuary, my asylum. I like writing in rooms that are the size of boardrooms - which is the official function of the room I sit in. On those hot afternoons, writing my drafts, I’d spread my old manuscripts about on this table, and during moments of impasse, flop my head and arms on the long table’s cooling wooden surface.

The other thing I love about this room is its proximity to where Tom’s parents spent time in the 1830s. Within a short walk is the site of the Female Orphan Asylum where Tom’s mother lived for several years of her childhood. You can still walk around the sandstone Orphan Asylum and down to the Parramatta River where the girls on Sunday boarded a boat to attend church. And even closer is Parramatta Park where Tom Wills brought the aboriginal cricket team to play in 1867. I am sure most Sydneysiders have little idea of this marvellous team and even less of Tom Wills.

Before I forget, I was asked a question by Sue which I didn’t answer. Yes, Tom’s exposure to alcohol at Rugby School probably shaped his central nervous system to some extent for his later alcoholism. This, of course, cannot be the entire reason for his alcoholism because every second boy might have developed alcohol abuse. What is not commonly known is that cricketers drank alcohol before, during and after matches. I found a delightful Cambridge Guide for the gentleman cricketer published in the nineteenth century. The Guide gave advice on drinking during a match. The suggested drink of choice was claret which under an Australian sun was iced.