Navigation:
Sample pages | Acknowledgements | Who is it for? | The Blog (extras)
A note from the author
Here you will meet what to do when lost; when you are out in a fire; dealing with earthquakes and tsunamis; wild water; wild winds and dangerous animals.
I have spent more than 70 years staying alive with bullants in my underpants, climbing cliffs to sneak up on fires, finding lost people, rescuing echidnas and possums, dealing with redbacks and other stuff. I survived! This is distilled wisdom from a cunning old B.
I hope you will have a great deal of fun from this book. I certainly had fun writing it.
The picture? Tony Flowers did that, especially for the book.
You can get information from the publisher here.
Thanks
The main helpers were my family, who patiently waited while I took many of the photographs for this work: Christine Macinnis who was there for all of them (and read all of this), and non-relatves Lyn and Warren Kidson who were there for a large number of the Sydney ones, and Anne, Terence and David Lemmon, who stood still for quite a few, across four states. Angus and Duncan Macinnis made two deep forays with me into the Budawangs, seeking an elusive unconformity. In the end, they made a third trip, without me, to get the shot I needed. Cate found me New Zealand sites. It has been a family show.Some of the friends I made as a small boy infected me with an enthusiasm for nature. Peter Sivyer, Harry Himsley and Harry Woodward were three of those. This is payback time.
Chapter headings:
- About this book and Introduction: vi to 1
- Surviving and getting safely home: 2 to 43
- Surviving fire: 44 to 65
- Surviving earth movements: 66 to 91
- Surviving wild water:92 to 115
- Surviving wild winds:116 to 139
- Surviving dangerous animals:140 to 169
Cover pics and sample bits
Here are some random page-openings
Who I want to reach
People like me, who want to be out and about, but who want to stay alive.Simple pleasure is good pleasure. Survival is definitely pleasant.
Instructions for use
I hope this book won't ever be a classroom text book, but it shouild be in libraries. I would like its ideas and ideals to seep into classrooms everywhere, because the advice you find here is stuff that young people need to know and improve on. They can share the methods—and the wonder—with parents, grandparents and neighbours. Lifelong education goes both ways!
Freebie extras!
I don't waste the out-takes, though.
The dropped items are now appearing, bit by bit, in my writing blog, Old Writer on the Block. Remember: it may not be all that hard or risky: we just had too much material. Poke around there, and notice the tags that I attach to the entries to help readers to zero in on particular types of entry. In particular, follow the "survival" tag, when I get around to adding it.
Click here for information from the National Library's shop.
This file is http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/writing/survivorkids.htmIt was created on December 31, 2019, and last updated February 18, 2020.
If you email me at macinnis at ozemail.com.au, you will reach a spam trap, but you will be read, eventually, probably maybe. If you put my first name in front of that address (so it reads petermacinnis), you will reach me much faster and more surely. I am generally willing to talk to interesting humans. Spammers miss out twice on fitting that specification.
The home page of this set is here.
