Peter Watt – Aussie’s Wilbur Smith

Peter Watt’s big canvas Australian historicals have garnered a popular following far beyond the shores of his homeland. And that’s how Peter – a man of action who’s been described as “the Australian Wilbur Smith” – likes it, because he’s always had a primary aim of entertaining readers and elevating Aussie stories to international notice. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Peter talks about living his dream life – volunteer fire fighting for six months of the year and writing his new historical series in the other six . Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why he’s got the ideal life How Wallarie became a star in Germany The little known history that excites him How his passion for Aussie history has inspired others The writers he admires the most What he’d do differently next time: (you’ll be surprised!) Website: http://www.peterwatt.com Facebook:  (Fans of Peter Watt books – Public group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/60777773968/  What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Peter. .  Hello there Peter and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. How Peter got started as an author Peter:  Hello Jenny and ‘Kia Ora’ to all my New Zealand readers. (Ed note: Kia Ora is a Maori greeting of welcome.) Peter Watt: Author and volunteer fire fighter Jenny:  That’s fantastic, and you do have a lot of New Zealand readers.  We’ll get on to that.  But beginning at the beginning, I always like to ask this question although it’s maybe a little clichéd – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided that you wanted to write fiction?  And if so, what was the catalyst for it? Peter:  Yes, well I’ve looked at this question many times and I think I was aged 7 sitting on a tractor …. driving round and round in circles, and of course in those days there were no cabins, you just sucked in the diesel and sucked up the dust, and I thought to myself, I’m going to start creating stories in my head so I don’t go mad.  It started there, Jenny. Jenny:  But it took you a long time then to get round to doing it. Peter:  Yes, you know, we make the mistake of letting life get in the way and not devoting ourselves to what we really want to do.  I was about 50 when I commenced writing “Cry of the Curlew” (Book One in the Frontier series) and from there it’s been history, with all the other books following. Cry of the Curlew: #1 in the Frontier series Jenny:  Did you always know it would be historical fiction that you would want to write? Peter:  Yes, most definitely.  I was influenced by James A. Michener, Leon Uris and many of those other American writers who tended to write with the historical background. I always thought that our part of the world, Australia and New Zealand, had got very little exposure in literature, so I devoted myself to that.  Jenny:  I know you’ve said that actually you probably have been responsible for a little bit of a tourist boom drawing people to Australia, having become interested in the Australian stories, so you’ve been successful at that. Peter:  Yes, it’s nice when I receive emails from American readers who say, you know we never thought about coming to Australia until we read one of your books.  And I would sometimes meet them at the airport and give them a bit of a guided tour. Peter’s 12-book Aussie family saga  Jenny:  Fantastic!  What a lovely thing.  You’ve led a remarkably adventurous life and we’ll get onto that, but your series – you’ve got a 12 books Frontier series which is a very big family drama, in fact it follows the rivalry between two families and now you’ve started a new series, The Queen’s Colonial.  There have been a few stand alones and I think a Papua New Guinea trilogy in the middle there somewhere, but let’s talk about the latest book, the Queen’s Colonial. Peter Watt: Papua trilogy Peter:  I was influenced by the fact that when I was researching the Crimean War, which was always a fascinating war, that people’s names would crop up on regimental roles as having been born in the Colony of New South Wales or Victoria or New Zealand for that matter. I thought, these are the kind of forgotten Aussies who participated in European affairs. So that inspired me to write the book “The Queen’s Colonial”. Jenny:  And you were doing the Crimea research for the Frontier series, were you? Peter:  It was only the fact that I was looking at the Crimean War because it was an interesting subject and this is where it all cropped up. Jenny:  OK.  “The Queen’s Colonial” starts in New Zealand, rather briefly, and then progresses to Australia but most of it actually is based in England and then Crimea. Tell us about the New Zealand bit for those people who might be listening in New Zealand. Peter:  It starts out with the first major clash between the Maori and the British, where the British went in very arrogantly with even rocket batteries and everything else. They thought they would teach the Maori a lesson, because they were used to doing this to other native populations.  And as it was, it became a massive defeat for the British army. They had to retreat.  The third book in the series, which I am currently writing – half that book will be devoted to the Waikato campaign, around 1864-65. So we start in New Zealand and we end in New Zealand with the third book.  Jenny:  And I think you mention that famous forest ranger Von Tempsky as well don’t you? An Incident in the NZ Wars – watercolour by Gustavus Von Tempsky Peter:  Yes, I’ve got a little leaden statue of him here sitting on my desk.  He alone is a book – his life and adventures.  Jenny:  Yes, I must admit, shamefully, that I haven’t yet been tempted to try and write New Zealand historicals. I’ve got a great great grandfather and his brother – my great great uncle – who weren’t actually forest rangers but who fought alongside Von Tempsky and who Von Tempsky made notes about in his journal.  I’m afraid that my family were empire builders. These days it’s something to be a bit ashamed about I guess. But they very much came from that background. So, the Frontier series tracks the deadly rivalry between two families – the Duffys and the Macintoshs. I think you finished that in about the 1950s in Malaysia – in the Malaya War and the Vietnam War. Vietnam in Peter’s books and life From the Stars Above #12 in the Frontier series Peter:  No, I actually finished it in 1968 with the Battle of Balmoral and Coral where the Australians fought their biggest battle in Vietnam.  It was never mentioned much in the media because at that stage the media were more or less supporting the anti-Vietnam campaign. But it was a massive battle where the men who defended Balmoral and Coral. Amongst them were many Kiwis, actually ended up with almost hand to hand fighting, and being overrun by the North Vietnamese. Jenny:  Yes, that was a war, sadly, where the men who fought didn’t get the recognition they deserved at home because of the political climate. Peter:  A very good friend of mine, Lieutenant Dave Sabben at the Battle of Long Tan always praised the Kiwi gunners who saved them from being overrun.  I noticed also in the Battle of Kapyong it was Kiwi artillery gunners who saved us there as well, so the Australian Army has the highest respect for the New Zealand artillery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ4txHAK6g4 The Battle of Long Tan- one of many engagements shared by Australian and NZ soldiers Jenny:  And you trained as a military adviser for Vietnam but I gather you didn’t get there before the war ended.  Is that right? Peter:  Yes.  What happened – the training was intensive.  The training team were the equivalent of the American Green Berets where we were to live in villages, so we had to speak the language, we had to know every weapon on the battlefield.  It was a rather intensive course and I was the youngest ever to be selected.  It was for a section called a Mobile Army Training Team and I got out of the army and thought, well I’ve learnt Vietnamese, what a useless language, but years later as a police officer I was the only one who could read, write and speak the language. Jenny:  And at the time were you disappointed you didn’t get there or relieved? Peter:  Well I volunteered, I signed up for three years and every soldier who volunteers wants to see some action.  It may change when they get there but it’s a case of, this is what I’m trained for, this is what I should be doing.  So I was very disappointed, yes. Jenny:  In The Queen’s Colonial your character Ian, you mention at one stage he’s addicted to war. I wondered if you’d come across men like that. Peter:  Yes Jenny, most definitely.  I knew soldiers during the Vietnam War who couldn’t get back quick enough.  They’d volunteer for a second deployment or a third deployment and for them war was their reality, peacetime was their ….. in between war.  It’s not for every man, but some men are born warriors and of course I’m speaking to a country where the Maori are world famous for their fighting abilities through actions from World War I through to World War II, Kapyong or Korea and even Vietnam. Ride The Wind: Book Six in Peter Watt’s Frontier series The Aussie Wilbur Smith Jenny:  You have been described as the Australian Wilbur Smith and you’ve mentioned James A. Michener and Leon Uris.  They’re all men who paint big canvases.  What is it that attracts you to these writers and what do you think you share with them? Peter:  Well I guess I share that love of history.  History’s an unpopular subject. It’s because of the way it’s taught at school. You know we learn about politicians and dates and explorers, but we don’t learn about what people are like in those days. Things like what they thought, and what they felt. As you research their diaries and their letters you realise they’re no different to us.  They just have different technology and different attitudes.  They’re our ancestors. Jenny:  And I gather you actually did develop more than a passing acquaintance with Wilbur Smith, that you have had a chance to talk with him. Peter:  Yes.  He came to Australia for a book signing tour and I was invited because he writes through Pan Macmillan in Australia, the same publishers that I do, so they introduced us.  I can always remember being in awe of this great man and he is a truly wonderful man as well as being a brilliant writer. I remember saying to him, “Cobber, you stick with Africa, The Middle East and Europe.  Don’t cross the Indian Ocean, I’ll look after Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the Pacific”, and we shook on that.  Australians fought at Khartoum in the Sudan But I’ve cheated, I’ve been to Africa in a few of my books as you may know.  Very few Australians realise that in 1884-85 the army of New South Wales went to the Sudan to fight in the war, Khartoum.  Many people saw that movie Khartoum.  They went and fought in that war.  It was the Colony of New South Wales alongside the British Army. Jenny:  It’s amazing how our ancestors seemed to feel that need to get involved in European wars isn’t, it? Peter:  New South Wales played a dirty trick on the other colonies and blocked their telegrams getting through requesting troops.  They wanted all the glory.  And of course in our State of Origin they’re still trying that! Jenny:  I wonder what sort of Australian history you might have been taught at school because I know from my experience that my schooling involved almost no New Zealand history. When I got to University and wanted to do a paper on New Zealand history I was told no, for various reasons I couldn’t do that, even though I was going to be a history teacher.  At the time I was absolutely amazed and astounded.  We did undervalue our own history 30, 40 years ago didn’t we? Peter:  My brother-in-law is a pakeha Kiwi and he said when he was at school nothing was mentioned about the New Zealand Wars.  He said we didn’t want to stir up our fellow students, and of course I have a Maori son-in-law and a Cook Islander son-in-law so I have some exposure to the Pacific.  But at school we were only taught about explorers in Australia, all the boring stuff.  We were never taught about the frontier of Queensland or West Australia or the Northern Territory. Jenny:  And your history with the original people was obviously something that was very much passed over. I do love in your books the way you treat the aboriginals.  Right from the first book they are taken seriously and treated with honour and respect. Gulf Country- Australia: Home for the popular character Wallarie How Wallarie became a cult hero Peter:  I’ve lived amongst aboriginal communities in the Gulf Country where I was working as a gas fitter’s assistant and we would be there for six months.  I started actually learning some of the dialect of that area and the worst part is the first words you learn are all the bad words so I won’t repeat them because someone might understand them. As a result of that the character of Wallarie grew, from an old bloke who learnt I was learning their language. He took me out into the bush and taught me their ways.  He got to like me a lot and I always remember a funny story he told me.  We were sitting there fishing for barramundi and he started chuckling and I said, what is it, Billy?  He said, some of these white people called anthropologists, they come down from the university and they want to learn all about the Dreamtime stories of my people.  So I tell them to go and get some baccy and I sit under the bumble tree and I tell them the stories of the Dreamtime.  And I said, that’s wonderful Billy, so the white man’ll know and he started laughing and said, yeah, but I made ‘em up.  And I thought to myself, he has this wonderful sense of humour.  Doomadgee – Gulf Country town where Wallarie lived. He says, yeah I get one back on the white fella and I thought, he’s got to become a character in one of my books and hence that old man from Doomadgee in the Gulf Country has now become Wallarie in the stories. Jenny:  Yes, and I love that character.  It’s tragic that storyline, but it is very, very interesting. Peter:  He’s a cult figure in Germany.  I often get emails from Germany, they all love Wallarie, most German uni students, and he’s become a bit of cult figure. Jenny:  He should develop his own website. Peter:  Good idea, Jenny.  I never thought of that.  See, you’ve been a journo! The Silent Frontier – a little known episode in NZ history Jenny:  You’ve highlighted some obscure New Zealand history as well.  In your book The Silent Frontier you refer to one of these tales which I had never heard of before – that 3,000 Australians came to fight in the Land Wars here in 1864.  I’ve got a Maori running coach and I asked Wiremu, because he’s also been in the Navy and knows his military history, and he knew about this, but I had never heard of it. Peter:  The interesting thing I was on tour in New Zealand with one of my books and I bumped into so many descendants of those men.  They would say, my great-great grandfather came here from, you know, the Colony of New South Wales or Tasmania, to engage.  And what the British Army would do, they would sign them up so they were part of the British Army.  They weren’t recognized as colonial Australians, but I always tell friends now, with 3,000 Aussies going over there at that period of time, now you know why the Kiwis are coming here.  They’re just getting their revenge. Jenny:  It’s interesting to know how many of them stayed and how many went home again.  You grew up in the country and I notice from your biography online that you attended Catholic boarding school, so you got sent away to school.  I wondered if that was partly because of the rural education not quite being what it should be and if it suggested an Irish family heritage but you mentioned to me before we started this interview that it’s actually a Scottish heritage. Peter’s life outside of writing Peter:  It’s both, Irish/Scottish.  My mother was of Irish descent, my Dad was Scottish so I came from a Baptist/Catholic background.  And you don’t get more divergent than that. Jenny:  You surely don’t.  But you ended up going to Catholic schools. Peter:  Yes.  It was a case of, being on a farm you went to a boarding school and you learnt to get tough.  If you couldn’t stand up and fight you lost your meat pie on Tuesdays. Jenny:  So what age did you start at boarding school? Peter:  I think I was around about 12. Jenny:  So it was effectively the start of your secondary schooling, was it? Peter:  No, it was through primary as well.  It must have been earlier.  It was a case of being fairly young and all the way in boarding school until the end of my schooling.  I first had nuns teaching me and then brothers and then it was priests.  And now I’m just a Christian.  Barely. Jenny:  I’m surprised that it didn’t inoculate you. Peter:  No, my best friend is a Uniting Church pastor and we’re both in the Rural Fire Service and he also had a Catholic upbringing.  He went to the most exclusive Catholic school in Australia but he, excuse the expression a lot of Catholics recognise, dropped the rosary beads and became a Uniting Church pastor.  He’s still one of my best mates. Jenny:  What do you call this new series?  The other one was Frontier.  Have you got a nomer for this one yet? Peter:  Yes, I guess I’ll just call it The Queen’s Colonial series.  It was originally meant to be a trilogy but I can see it going into six books at least and so we’ll keep The Queen’s Colonial in the title so The Queen’s Tiger comes out this year and next year I’m toying with the The Queen’s Corgi.  I think I’ll drop the corgi bit. Jenny:  It doesn’t quite fit your image.  Those feature Ian Steele.  Is Ian going to be a continuing character through them all? Peter:  Until he gets killed.  Most readers know, don’t get close to the main character.  He could be dead by chapter 17.  But no, he’ll continue on.  In my mind he’s now on the northwest frontier of India fighting for his life and he’ll end up in New Zealand.  That’ll bring in that big circle, so he’ll come back to Australia. Jenny:  He is an Australian convict’s son who by a little interesting sleight of hand, we won’t spoil the story of how, but he manages to get the chance to become an officer in the British Army which is a life-long dream that as a convict’s son he would never have been able to achieve unless there’d been some little twist of fate.  I felt a little bit of a sense of loss that he didn’t spend much time in Australia because Australia is such a wonderful character in a lot of your other books and I wondered if you’d had any complaints from people who said they want him to spend more time in Australia. Peter:  No.  This is interesting because he’s still an Australian.  I’ll be bringing in New Zealand characters of course in my third book and it’s a case of when we read a book, often enough, if you’re not reading an American written book and suddenly an Australian character crops up, we immediately become interested.  We see our place somewhere else in the world then.  That sounds a bit intellectual, that’s not my books.  The interesting thing is that I write to entertain and I always remember when my first book came out, it was a nice, big, thick book and I get emails from Canadians who say I picked up your book in London, Heathrow or Paris and the only reason I picked your book was it was so big and I knew it would get me across the Atlantic and they say, before I knew it I was back in Canada or the USA.  So size does count, in some cases.  That was kind of nice too, that they found it was so engrossing that they hardly knew they were on the plane. Jenny:  Yes.  You kind of joked about the stigma of being a popular author and that you’re never considered for literary awards but in this new publishing environment – you’re still very much traditionally published by a mainstream publisher – but do you feel that maybe the stigma of being mass market is fading a little now that there are so many indie books being published? Peter:  It’s interesting, you know.  I remember when I first started with my first book and the wonderful Cate Paterson who’s the chief publisher in Australia for Pan Macmillan, and she said to me, she had this pained look on her face when she met me, and she said, do you ever hope to win any literary awards, and I looked at her and said no, I just want to be rich and famous and she said, thank God, because our popular writers support our literary writers. Picador is part of their establishment and I’m neither rich or famous, but I’ve had a bit of fun along the way. Peter Watt, rural fire fighter Jenny:  And it enables you to be a volunteer fire fighter for six months of the year. One of the recent fires Peter has been called to, in northern New South Wales Peter:  Well this is right.  You know, I don’t have these commitments to going and winning awards.  All I have to do is go out there for six months of the year and sit in a truck with my crew, because I’m crew leader, and fight fires.  There’ve been at least three occasions over the last ten years when I didn’t think I was going to make it out alive and I keep saying to myself, I’m not getting paid for this, three times I’ve almost been killed, why do I do it?  So there is insanity in every writer. Jenny:  Did you find an answer for yourself at that time? Peter:  I guess it was because of my past.  There were many times in my past when I didn’t think I was going to walk away and it is a bit of an adrenalin thing.  Why do people repel down off cliffs without safety nets, that type of thing.  In my case it’s doing something for the community.  Only a few days ago we fought a ferocious fire and we saved two houses.  But the media doesn’t report the fact that you save houses, just that certain houses get burnt down.  And the look on the faces of the people whose houses we saved, that was the best reward we could get. Jenny:  Yes.  So for people who don’t understand perhaps so well the Australian situation, I know that this interview’s been postponed twice because you got called out fire fighting.  You’ve been in Tasmania just in the last couple of weeks, and you were explaining that if there weren’t volunteer fire fighters, Australia really wouldn’t be able to continue as it is because there are so many communities where these spontaneous fires erupt and the country just couldn’t afford to pay fire fighters to fight them all, could it? Peter:  This is right.  We have a joke that to be in the Rural Fire Service or the Country Fire Authority or the Country Fire Service in the other states, you have to be over 65, have at least one hip operation, be deaf, can hardly see, and then they’ll be accepted as a volunteer.  Sadly, our young people don’t have the time to volunteer because they’re tied up with family and work and so on, but if I remember rightly we do have two people who are very young, they’re over 30 but they’re very young, at least to the rest of us.  Jenny:  That’s lovely.  It gives you a very exciting thing to do later in life, for sure. Peter:  You know, some of the fire fighters are almost 80 and yet they’re on a fire truck, you’re up and down hills, dragging hoses, intense heat, at almost 80 years old.  And yet society writes off older people as being useless, and if it wasn’t for these useless older people, towns would burn down, cities would be gutted, so it’s the old generation that are looking after the country. Jenny:  Yes, I had no idea actually that there was such a skew towards older people but when you think about it, of course it would be very difficult for young people to just drop everything and jump on a fire truck. Slightly changing track, is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that you feel has been the secret of your success?  You’ve had amazing longevity. Peter Watt, rural fire fighter Peter:  Well, I remember Bryce Courtenay was once asked, do you write books from your heart and he said, no I write them from my head.  He says, it was a bit like Charles Dickens.  Charles Dickens used to find out from his readers what they would like to see happen next in the book and on that philosophy I kind of write what I think people want to read.  But at the same time so many people have said to me, you’ve taught us so much about history we didn’t know about, because my readers know I don’t write about convicts and kangaroos.  I write about the lesser known parts of our history and that’s what fascinates people.  For example, with the book I wrote about New Zealand, I did that because I knew I had a New Zealand following and I wanted to include New Zealand in my collection of books and I will be doing it again next year with the third book.  Because we have had such a strong bond, we might kid each other, but I’ll always remember – I was with the military in New Zealand back in 1983 I think it was, I took a platoon of mostly aboriginal soldiers to New Zealand.  We went on exercises down at Tekapo and I remember saying to the men, just casually sitting around and said, what if New Zealand went to war and Australia said it wasn’t going to support them and every man said, well we would come over here as volunteers to fight.  And that was the attitude.  It would be back like the 3,000 who went across, except on the wrong side that time.  Aussies feel that way about New Zealanders, you know?  Except when it comes to the rugby.  And I found a loophole, I’m just going to warn all you Kiwis.  New Zealand once belonged to New South Wales so I’m going to put it forward to the Government that we take New Zealand back into New South Wales, disband the All Blacks, then we’ve got a chance! Jenny:  Very good.  So do you get direct suggestions from readers about stories or what they’d like to see happen with different characters?  Do you get that kind of feedback sometimes? Peter:  No, usually I get cursed.  Damn you.  Why did you kill off Luke Tracey?  I really liked him.  I remember this American character in the earlier books and I eventually thought I’d better kill him off in some dramatic way and I got a heap of mail from the lady readers who said, why did you do that?  And I said, I just had a downer on Yanks that day and somebody had to die. Peter as reader: his favourites Jenny:  Turning to Peter as reader, this series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” and we do try and interview series readers who have written books that people like to follow the whole series, but who do you like to binge read these days?  You mentioned James A. Michener and Leon Uris and Wilbur Smith – I’m sure they’re among your favourites.  Are there any new ones you’ve been following in recent times? Peter:  There’s Tony Park.  I’ve got to do a bit of an ad for Tony Park, he’s a great mate, he’s an Aussie.  He spent six months in Africa and six months in Australia and he’s an ex-Army officer who served in Afghanistan with the SAS as a PR Officer and he writes a great yarn too and I love reading his books. Jenny:  And what are they? Tony Park: African adventures Peter:  They’re set against Africa.  They’re modern day thrillers, you know it’ll be about the game wardens fighting poachers or similar type of stories but he is sort of taking over from Wilbur a little bit in modern times. Jenny:  That sounds great.  Do you get out and do book tours and things these days? Peter:  No, because book shops have disappeared in Australia.  I do remember an incident when I was touring New Zealand, when I was in Whitcoulls, I think it was in Auckland and I saw a lady down in the back corner.  It was during the ‘Big Blackout’ (Ed note – Auckland city suffered a power crisis with numerous outages for several weeks in 1998) and she was down in the corner, it was rather dark and she was looking at my latest book at the time and I made the mistake of going down and saying to her, if you buy that book I’ll sign it for you and she knew there was a maniac loose in Whitcoulls.  You know, you get these people impersonating Napoleon?  And I thought to myself, who’d want to impersonate me for a start?  In desperation I said, if you look inside the cover you’ll see my photo, so with one eye on me just in case I lunged at her with an axe she looked in the cover and said, it really is you.  And I said, yeah, I’ll sign the book for you.  I said, how did you get onto this book?  She said, I was in South Africa and I was talking to my friends in South Africa and I asked them, who’s a writer a bit like Wilbur Smith and they said, there’s Peter Watt from Australia, and hence she got onto that book.  And I thought, that’s wonderful, that somebody in South Africa would recommend me. Jenny:  Yes, it is fantastic.  I have a little confession to make.  I’ve got a sister who’s lived in Australia longer than she’s lived in New Zealand now and she’s living in Coolangatta now but she was living in New South Wales and I honestly can’t remember whether it was in Newcastle or Coolangatta, I think it was in Coolangatta.  You were signing books in a book shop and I had never heard of you and I hovered around thinking, should I get one of these books and in the end I didn’t, but when I came to interview you, I thought that was Peter Watt years ago in Coolangatta in a book shop and I could have got to know his work then! Peter:  I remember you now, Jenny.  I saw somebody skulking off, I was going to follow you.  But the whole thing is, I used to live at Tweed Heads which is adjacent to Coolangatta. Jenny:  That would be it, it was probably in Tweed Heads actually. Peter:  Even in Australia, I’m not that well known.  I’m better known internationally – in Germany and Czech Republic and all these other strange places where I can’t even read the titles on the books.  But over there apparently they’re not mesmerised by an under-25 year old drug addict recovering who’s written a book about their life and is on every morning show and is a best seller than night.  TV dictates what people read here.  I was on New Zealand TV once, that’s the only time I’ve ever been on TV. Jenny:  Is that right?  That amazes me actually, it really does. If you were doing it all over again. . . We are starting to come to the end of our time together, so circling round, looking back over your very interesting, eventful life, at this stage in your career, if you were doing it all over again, what would you change, if anything? Peter:  Three ex-wives. Jenny:  You’d like to have started on number four right at the beginning. Peter:  Yes, she’s wonderful.  I guess the sad part in life is we only get one go at it unless of course you’re a Buddhist and you get reincarnated, so all the mistakes I’ve made have led me here I guess. Jenny:  Would you care to specify any particular mistakes? Peter:  Three ex-wives.  Oh no, we already mentioned that didn’t we?  Jenny:  You did very smartly mention to me that every time you changed jobs you changed wives.  But I was pointing out that things like being a police officer are extremely marriage testing jobs to have, and you have done some jobs that have been rather marriage testing jobs haven’t you, to help to alleviate some of the responsibility? Peter:  Well, you know, while we’re on this, I’ve been trying to track down one of my best mates, he’s a Kiwi ex-copper and he and I served together in Papua New Guinea – Kevon Gee.  And if Kevon’s out there and he hears this, mate give me a call.  Kevon and I were the very best mates while we were up in Papua New Guinea, we saw a lot of action up there together.  Kevon actually got attacked and had an axe put through his back at one stage.  It was a wild frontier, the old Papua New Guinea days. Jenny:  There’s a very famous New Zealand writer called Maurice Gee, in fact there’s several of the Gee family who are very good writers, so I’m not sure if he’d be related into that line. Peter:  No, Kevon was more of a drinker. Jenny:  What is next for Peter the writer?  You’ve mentioned that you’re working on this partly New Zealand based series.  Anything else apart from that that you’ve got going at the moment? Peter:  At the end of this third book I’ll be facing a choice of either quitting writing or probably getting another three book deal if I suggest the next series, and the next series I think would be the son of Ian Steele and jump ahead twenty years – but again it’ll bring me back to Australia with Federation, where it becomes part of Australia again. Jenny:  And if Pan Macmillan decided they weren’t going to go to another three book deal you wouldn’t consider indie publishing? Peter:  Well I hit the big 70 this year and I thought, well I’d rather be out fishing and going out and fighting fires.  Writing is a tough business.  It’s ten hours a day, seven days a week for six months and I think to myself, life’s getting shorter, maybe I should go and enjoy myself. Jenny:  Do you do lots of drafts?  Ten hours a day – that’s a very heavy day. Peter:  Most of it’s done in research.  The thing is, you must get your facts right.  But it was pretty easy for this last book that I wrote because it was all accounts by people who were there, you know, eye-witness accounts.  So I just put my fictional characters against their accounts.  I know Pan Macmillan, if I said I’ve got another three books to go, they would give me a three book deal.  But that ties me down to three years of writing. Jenny:  Do you enjoy interacting with your readers and where can they find you online or do you interact in other places? Peter:  A lot of it is online.  Now with Facebook there is a site called Fans of Peter Watt books and I often have competitions on there for the latest releases and I even include my website where the books can be found and every book that’s published, www.peterwatt.com.  Often enough, speaking to people on Facebook for example, I always post up pictures of fire fighting, a few exciting things, because that’s about the only exciting things that happen in my life.  Being a writer or an actor is pretty boring most of the time. Jenny:  That’s lovely.  So people can find you at Fans of Peter Watt Books. Peter:  On Facebook.  And I’d love them to come in because I already have some wonderful New Zealand readers on there and of course to me New Zealand is very valued because per head of population there are probably more Kiwis reading my books than Aussies.  That’s why New Zealand gets included in the next book that I write. Jenny:  Yes, I hate to mention it but that famous quip of a New Zealand Prime Minister that when lots of Kiwis moved to Australia they upped the national IQ.  That shows you, you see, they read more Peter Watt here. Peter:  I can tell you there are people over in New Zealand right now probably reading a Peter Watt book. Jenny:  That’s lovely Peter, we wish you all the best with the next series that you’re doing and it’s been wonderful talking today.  Thank you so much. Peter:  Jenny, it’s been a pleasure, and all the best to all my New Zealand readers.  And hopefully Australia will have a chance in the next World Series against the All Blacks. Jenny:  I’m just wondering what’s happening with the cricket actually.  I’ve lost track of when we’re playing cricket next against you. Peter:  Rugby is a religion of mine. Jenny:  Is it?  Thanks so much Peter.  Have a good day. Peter:  Thank you. 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