Dear Reader,

It truly never entered my head that I would ever write a book.   It wasn’t that I thought I couldn’t.  It’s just that I didn’t think I had anything remarkable to say.  It was the constant urging on the part of my wife and good friend that tipped the balance.  Carolyn continued year after year following my retirement to offer the opinion that I had made a significant contribution to the public weal in an area that was not sufficiently appreciated.  She stressed in addition that it was the sort of book that only I could write for myself.

In a period in the 1920’s, when the whole world was staggering under a deep economic depression, our small family suffered a momentous lapse of fortune which reduced us suddenly from a position of reasonable financial comfort to one of struggling poverty and, for me at least,  degrading dependence on the reluctant charity of others among our extended family.  Luckily we had sufficient ability in all sorts of directions to keep our self-images in shape, so that we achieved creditably at least.  This was mainly due to the fierce protection and encouragement of our diminutive, fervently religious mother.

From it all I emerged with a non-aggressive certainty that life was not all that fair, that the possession of enough personal ability to weather the imbalances was not evenly distributed, and that there were vast numbers of people who were destined, from the moment they were conceived, to struggle to make their way in an increasingly complicated world.  These were the people, I thought, who would one day stumble along the way and find themselves the grist for the mill of the criminal justice system with only the vaguest idea of how to escape.

 Nevertheless I put all this to the back of my mind, became a head teacher in small outback country schools from eighteen years of age, soon tired of the too easy task of providing the climate in which most children could learn, and, not surprisingly I daresay, found myself concentrating my mind on how to help the strugglers to make it.  In short this led to my being seconded by our Department to do some educational, occupational and clinical guidance research,  followed by appointment as Chief Probation and Parole Officer in our State.  This eventually resulted in an appointment to a position of Assistant Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

That’s it.  I hope you decide to read all about it, and what’s more, I hope you enjoy it.

Colin R. Bevan OAM

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