Press Release

Talking animals have been relatively prominent in light adult literature for some time, and the reader contemplating buying “Home Thoughts On Abroad” might be forgiven for thinking “Oh no, not another cute canine telling us about her great adventures”. Wrong! This is something quite different. The twenty plus letters in his book, purportedly written by a dog from the Australian bush, chronicle with considerable humour and sharp observation, the trauma for a much loved, true blue Aussie Collie, of being transported from her five acre home in rural Western Australia to a new life in a town house in the West of England. She tells her story with a nice injection of colourful Aussie patois, gleaned from her home environment.

The book will appeal to all dog lovers, with the possible exception of the refined members of the  “Crufts Set”. It will resonate in particular with Brits who have made the big move “Down-Under” and stayed there or returned to Britain with friendships and other connections still in place, and with Aussies living here now and feeling occasional pangs of homesickness for their old sunburned land.

The author of the letters set out to write them to the Australian friends who had looked after the dog during her six months quarantine, as a means of saying thankyou for doing so. As the letters were developed and attracted an interest among other friends still living there, they became an important means of keeping in touch with the life he and his wife had to leave behind when they returned to England for family reasons. This provides a very human counterpoint to the dog's view of the world. The book will appeal at different levels to everyone above the age of 15 who has ever owned a dog.

Published by Austin and Macauley. ISBN 9781849631136, Publication Date 31 January 2012 and available to pre-order from Amazon here.

My new book to be published in late January 2012

Greetings to my fellow Australians, and to all youse Pommies who are out there waiting to join up. My name is Chloe, and I was once a fun-loving dog, living in a small watering hole called Gidgegannup, in the western bit of the old sun-burned land, not far from the great city of Perth. I spent many happy days there baking my bum in the sun, chasing chooks and roos, digging up flowerbeds, and giving a right royal serve to any mongrels who dared to venture onto our property. I was also getting plenty of good tucker, including Coles Dog Chocs, and the odd cheese and biscuit around beer-o-clock time.

Then suddenly my owners went walk about, and I was sent back to the kennel where I was born. I was eventually transported in a cage on a big silver bird to this strange place called England, where it rains most days and the blokes think they can play cricket (In their dreams!!).

But it wasn`t all bad. I did meet up with my owners again, and got a load of laughs from their efforts to resettle into this weird country.

If you want to read my story, you must buy a copy of Home Thoughts On Abroad, yours for only a few dollars, which includes a donation to my retirement fund. It will bring tears to your eyes and make your belly ache with laughing.

Don’t forget, Home Thoughts On Abroad, ghost written by my male human, Malcolm Orr who spent several years helping to look after the old Uni down in Nedlands, and published by Austin and Macauley, available  from the end of January 2012 at your local bookshop or newsagents, and on line from amazon.com here.

ISBN 9781849631136