Jim's Book

2 The Accidental Gardener

Jim graduated from high school with utter jubilation. ‘My last day of school was a wonderful feeling. I never had to go back!' He'd realised he lacked the discipline to be a science-fiction writer so had to figure out what to do instead. The question of why Rome had fallen and how civilisations form, grow, prosper and ultimately collapse, had been a constant passion since the age of fourteen. He resolved to go to university to study whatever would answer his questions … But first he wanted a gap year. His parents had friends who owned a farm in Western Australia and he decided to work there for a time. It was there he began going by ‘Jim' because the farmer's son was also called David. ‘I wanted to create a new identity for myself,' Jim shared, signifying his desire to break away from childhood.

The work on the farm was great; Jim enjoyed being outdoors and doing physical work. He learned to drive, and found a horse in one of the paddocks he could ride. That far from the city the stars looked brilliant, and he learned the names of the bright stars and constellations from a book his father had given him. But even for Jim it was too isolated, and after four months he returned home to Melbourne, not sure what to do next.

He saw an ad in the newspaper for a commission-only job selling encyclopaedias, and ‘knocked on doors for two weeks without any success'. He didn't earn any money from it, so he started canvassing for a paint company, and failed at that ...