A Fortunate Life

anjo Award for Australian Literature, (Winner 1981). NSW State Literary Award, (Winner 1981). Douglas Stewart Prize (Winner, 1981)”[A] plain, unembellished, utterly sincere and un self-pitying account of the privations of childhood and youth.” – Courier Mail”[An] extremely powerful description of Gallipoli.” – Australian Book Review“This is an autobiography that should be read by young people today. Albert Facey, a man who taught himself to read and write, writes it, and writes it well There is so much to learn on every page about how to live a successful life, no matter how the deficits pile up.” – Queensland Reviewers Collective“Facey is a natural storyteller The optimism and positivity that made him deem his life fortunate is evident throughout the narrative. Facey is often described as an ordinary man but his life story will be far from ordinary for contemporary children” – Writing WA

A.B. Facey was born in 1894 and grew up on the Kalgoorlie goldfields and in the wheat-belt of Western Australia. His father died before he was two and he was deserted by his mother soon afterwards. He was looked after by his grandmother until he was eight years old, when he went out to work. His many jobs included droving, hammering spikes on the railway line from Merredin to Wickepin and boxing in a travelling troupe. He was in the Eleventh Battalion at the Gallipoli landing; after the war, he became a farmer under the Soldier Settlement Scheme but was forced off the land during the Depression. He joined the tramways and was active in the Tramways Union. A.B. Facey, who had no formal education, taught himself to read and write. He made the first notes on his life soon after World War I, and filled notebooks with his accounts of his experiences. Finally, on his children’s urging, he submitted the hand-written manuscript to the Press. He died in 1982, nine months after A Fortunate Life had been published to wide acclaim.