Morris Gleitzman's latest children's book centres on a 14-year-old Australian country kid chasing his dreams of football glory to a leading club in Britain.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It was the reverse journey of the one the award-winning author made himself, one that in two years took a 16-year-old from London to Sydney then Canberra, and Gleitzman was reminiscing about the ''bush capital'' after he accepted an alumni award on Thursday.
''Every young writer needs as much encouragement and as little distraction as possible when they're learning their craft, and Canberra was perfect for that because in the early 1970s it was almost completely devoid of distraction,'' he said.
''I have to say the brand new [Canberra College of Advanced Education] campus was in some splendid virgin bushland, now known as Belconnen.
''We had the interest of seeing them lay out Belconnen lake, and put in the kerbs and gutters of about eight suburbs.''
Gleitzman, who completed his professional writing arts degree in 1973 and has since written more than 35 books, joined retired rugby union player George Gregan, Olympic rowing coach Paul Thompson and successful Indian businessman Rahul Mirchandani as 2013 alumni excellence award winners at the University of Canberra.
The peak Distinguished Alumni Award was won by Ibrahim Ismail, who was a political prisoner and became the inaugural president of the Maldivian Democratic Party, which transformed governance in the Indian Ocean archipelago last decade.
Mr Ismail spent six years in Canberra from 1988 completing bachelor's and master's degrees in education, and said it was an ideal city for studying.
''I found Canberra was a pretty good place to study because - unlike in some of the other metropolitan places - if I wanted to find peace and quiet to study, [I] could, if I wanted to party, I could.''
Maldives has a run-off presidential vote on September 28, and the key player in the drafting of the nation's democratic constitution said he had found it refreshing to see Australian governments going to the people for re-approval every three years.
''And another thing I learnt [in Australia] is that even though there is a government and opposition who argue with each other, they are able to come together in the national interest. That was the type of democracy I wanted in my country, too,'' he said.
