Thanks Greg for your posts sharing the trials and joys of writing the biograpghy of Tom Wills, one of the greatest Australian stories ever told.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Greg will be appearing at:

• Melbourne Cricket Ground , Betty Cuthbert Room / Atrium,  Gate 3 on Thursday 5 February 2009, 6.30 pm
 For more information phone 8664 7555 or book online at  http://summerread35.eventbrite.com
 This is a National Sports Museum Public Program in association with the State Library of  Victoria. The event includes a special viewing of interview footage from the SBS Tom Wills documentary to be screened in May 2009 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of first  rules written for Australian Football.

• Rutherglen Football Club, Barkly Park, Reid Street, Rutherglen on Tuesday 24 February 2009, 8pm �
 For more information phone 02 6032 8206 or book online at  http://summerread36.eventbrite.com
 The event includes a special viewing of interview footage from the SBS Tom Wills  documentary to be screened in May 2009 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of first  rules written for Australian Football.

Vote for Tom Wills: His Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall or SMS WILLS to 13 46 88

Merry Christmas to all the writers, readers and drifters who come across this site.

This blog is from Blackheath - in the Blue Mountains - about a 1000 km from Melbourne.

I reckon the best blogs are those where not too much care is taken; where mistakes might be made and the writer just shoots off whatever comes first into his or her mind. I find that hard to do but when I come across someone who has done that, I know I enjoy it all the more.

Some years ago I chanced upon a short article on the life of Tom Wills. Sadly, Tom Wills took his own life - he stabbed himself in the heart in the autumn of 1880. It was my wife who suggested that we trek to the Mitchell Library in Sydney to find his obituary. The obituary noted that Tom Wills had been admitted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital the day before his death. The Royal Melbourne Hospital also happens to be my old medical school.

I was curious about Tom Wills but, thought, I had more responsible things to do - like continuing to work as a doctor. That curiosity never did leave me, and so, self-consciously, I rang the Royal Melbourne Hospital to ask if they had doctors’ notes from 1880. They did, in a large room at the back of the hospital, but no one, it was explained, had ever really wanted to look at them.

I flew to Melbourne - the pretext was a medical conference where I gave a paper - and then immediately caught a tram along Royal Parade to the hospital. There, a bemused archivist showed me a room filled with unopened cardboard boxes. In each box were about a dozen leatherbound medical records from the 1800s. There was no order to the notes. I sat down for about 5-6 hours until I came across the notes that recorded the final hours of the life of Tom Wills. I could hardly believe what I saw. Tom Wills, it turned out, was an alcoholic and was in the DTs when he took his life. In the midst of DTs and tormented by paranoid delusions he absconded from hospital on the evening of 1 May 1880. The next day he was dead.

Bloody Hell! … was my first reaction. My second was to care for this archive.

I shot outside the room and kissed the archivist, asking her to keep the notes safe. I then ran on to Royal Parade and raced to my favourite pub from my days as a medical student - Naughton’s Hotel. The first pot of beer disappeared in a moment, the second lingered. It was just as I finished that second beer, looking at the falling leaves from the elms, with the noise of the trams intruding upon the most fantastic phase of sweet intoxication, that I thought I might try to find out more about this Tom Wills.

That’s how I started the book.

Greg de Moore is next Summer Read author blogging from 26 – 30 December.

His book, Tom Wills: His Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Greg de Moore is a consultant psychiatrist at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital and his study of Wills’ life stems from his interest in male suicide. His ten years of research has unearthed original medical records, letters, text books and notes, previously believed to have been lost or destroyed.

Tom Wills: His Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall is the definitive biography of Tom Wills – flawed genius, sporting libertine, fearless leader and agitator, and the man most often credited with creating the game we now know as Australian Rules football. His contribution to Australian history has endured for more than 150 years and is perhaps the greatest Australian sports story of all.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Greg will be appearing at:

• Melbourne Cricket Ground , Betty Cuthbert Room / Atrium,  Gate 3 on Thursday 5 February 2009, 6.30 pm
 For more information phone 8664 7555 or book online at  http://summerread35.eventbrite.com
 This is a National Sports Museum Public Program in association with the State Library of  Victoria. The event includes a special viewing of interview footage from the SBS Tom  Wills documentary to be screened in May 2009 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of first  rules written for Australian Football.

• Rutherglen Football Club, Barkly Park, Reid Street, Rutherglen on Tuesday 24 February 2009, 8pm �
 For more information phone 02 6032 8206 or book online at  http://summerread36.eventbrite.com
 The event includes a special viewing of interview footage from the SBS Tom  Wills  documentary to be screened in May 2009 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of first  rules written for Australian Football.

What Greg says about summer reading

‘My first Summer Read was Black Beauty. I was about 7. Dad was batting
in a cricket match; I sat on the boundary reading. A missed bumper saw
Dad unconscious and carried back to the pavilion. I walked over, book
held open, to see Dad as he was carried off. He recovered in the
pavilion; I returned to reading on the boundary line. Summer in
Melbourne.’