Unlike many authors, I hated school, especially English. I did, however, love history. My love of history started from an early age when Dad would tell us stories of our ancestors coming to Australia from England. My first ancestor arrived with the second fleet. Years later, the other side of the family came as free settlers. The story starts with which family is better than the other. While I could listen to the story every night, the older siblings begged for the story never to be told again.