I started blogging early this morning.

Mainly because I have to race across the street and place this blog on to a neighbour’s computer. I know this sounds unbelievable to some, but I don’t actually have the internet at home. Then I’m off to take my children for a swim. This blog is a bit longer than I had planned but no time to shorten.

I also just loved this episode in writing the book.

I spent a great deal of time, travelling around Australia and beyond, looking for family letters from the nineteenth century. Often I was frustrated but there were moments of exhilaration. One of these was in Queensland.

On 17 Oct 1861, aborigines entered the campsite of a party of European settlers and murdered 19 men, women and children. The place: central Queensland. The land: Kairi aboriginal land.

And its relevance to the Tom Wills biography? Tom Wills and his father led this European expedition from Victoria to Queensland.

Did Tom die? No. He was lucky to be away from the campsite at the time of the attack. But his father - Horatio Wills - did die struck across the face and neck. A blow that nearly severed his head.

I had read newspaper reports of the 1861 killings. Indigenous Australians were referred to in many ways including the corrupt spelling of ’savages’ which starts this blog.

Whatever I wrote in the Tom Wills biography, I knew that I had to spend time in Queensland to understand this period. If I was lucky I might even find a few letters in official Queensland archives.

I had been told that there was little likelihood of finding much in the way of family letters, that these had been either destroyed or sent to Victoria and were readily available at the State Library.

But I learned that one should never just accept the advice ‘nothing will be found’. If you write a biography you must go and look for yourself. I am glad I did.

It turned out that some of the Wills family still lived in Queensland, not far from the site of the 1861 killings. I phoned. Within a few months I flew to Rockhampton (I quickly discovered everyone just calls it ‘Rocky’) and in my rent-a-car drove 6-7 hours inland.

I arrived at the family property late in the morning and was met by, coincidentally, Tom Wills. This modern Tom Wills was the owner of a vast cattle property. I knew that, whatever else, the introduction was important. I had been told that Tom was not too keen on city dwellers and that my being a psychiatrist was unlikely to help.

When I met Tom he looked me up and down, making a rapid assessment.

He waved me towards an old Queensland homestead where his mother lived. Tom lived a few hundred metres away from the homestead, in an old wooden hut. There was no one else on the property. As we strolled in the blazing sun (about 11 am) he asked what I’d like to do. Sensing that this was the moment, I took a punt and suggesed a drink would go down well. With the broadest smile you’d ever see, he exclaimed: ‘You’re my kind of a man’ and marched directly to his hut, flinging open the fridge door to reveal its cubic capacity filled with nothing but cans of XXXX beer.

Six hours later I was sitting on the floor of his hut in a less than sober state thinking that this was a hell of a way to build rapport. Then, at about 5 pm, through the smoke haze of roll-your-own cigarettes that my new friend was working through at an alarming rate, Tom suggested: ‘I suppose you might want a look at some of my letters’. The fact that by now I could barely walk seemed no impediment at all to Tom. We made our way across a paddock to another hut. He sat me down at a huge table and stooping forward he hauled out a trunk from beneath the table. In the trunk was a collection of letters from the nineteenth century. Letters written by the family. Letters that discussed the murder of Horatio Wills by ‘the blacks’ and the family’s reaction.

No amount of reading newspapers, or periodicals, or official accounts of the killings could match what was poured on to the table before me. The letters were in a rough state - many ripped, some in scattered parts and others written in that dreadful cross-writing used by pioneers to save paper. In my intoxicated state, in the Queensland bush, I was overwhelmed.

I looked up and asked: ‘Where have these letters been?’ ‘Under the homestead’ was the answer.

Tom left me in my dazed state. I had arrived in Queensland to find, hopefully, one or two items of value. Instead I was flooded.

The following day, Tom took me out around the property and countryside. We walked to the gravesite of the Europeans killed that day in 1861 and talked of the retribution which saw scores of aborigines slaughtered as a consequence.

For a week I remained locked away in the Queensland Outback, oblivious to Sydney, Melbourne or just about anywhere else as I slowly transcribed each letter.

When I got into my car and returned to Rocky I sat in the aiport assailed by everthing modern - public address blasts, television screens, radio, computers, mobile phones. For a moment I sat still thinking hard, trying to cling to the purity and simplicity of the last week, knowing that despite my attempts, it would vanish in moments.

I remain on the best of terms with the Wills family and, at this time of Christmas, have just received a card from the cattle property. Each year this card reminds me of a wonderful week of discovery.