Six months after moving back to the New England region I experienced a quiet hour of panic, wondering why I’d so blithely swapped the suburbs for the district I was born in. Seven years on, I realise it was the identity crisis I needed – but what really helped was taking up social tennis.
I admit to spending decades running from the bush. If I’d stayed on the family farm at Myall Creek I’d have become a third-generation grazier, a country teacher or solicitor. These perfectly respectable careers were identities handed to me on a plate, yet I’d shuffled off all my birthrights to become an artist, journalist and equality campaigner.
