His life closely mapped the drama of the early decades of the young country, in peacetime and in war. ‘Bert’ Facey was born in 1894, seven years before Federation and the birth of a modern Australian nation. A Fortunate Life by Albert Barnett Facey finally appeared in 1981. When the finished manuscript was sent off to Freemantle Arts Centre Press with a request that it be prepared for vanity publication – an edition of just twenty copies – the publishers saw potential in the book and produced a commercial run instead. That work was not completed for some years, by which time the man was elderly, his beloved wife passed away. These tales, polished verbally over decades, were intended for his children and grandchildren to read and pass along. While his wife made jam and encouraging noises, he began filling exercise books with episodes from his past. One day in the early 1970s, a retired pig and poultry farmer from Western Australia sat down at his kitchen table. The story has been told so often it has taken on an air of myth.
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