New novel brings local past to life

WHEN he retired five years ago, Richard Moorman decided it was time to tick off a bucket list item; to write a book and have it published.

“I thought, one day I’ll sit down and do something creative to keep my mind active,” he said.

“I wasn’t sure what the book was going to be about, but in my work, I was involved in writing operations manuals and privacy agreements in my own business, and I always enjoyed the writing.

“I’ve always read history rather than fiction. I decided I’d write a book that had history behind it and give people some knowledge they may never have learnt about at school.”

First came his debut novel Abandoned Warriors Riding High, inspired by the Vietnam War, but late last year, Moorman released his second book, The Gravel Pits.

“It’s a fictional historical story which tells of an Australian colonial family’s dark side during the birth of a new colony at the Yarra River settlement of Port Phillip Bay, to the riches of the Ballarat goldfields and beyond the Eureka Stockade rebellion,” he said.

“Everything I’ve put in the book, whether they went to Dr Evans on the corner of Queen Street or stayed at the Highlander Hotel, gives people an overview of real places of the time, while following a fictional crime family.”

Moorman has included as much Australiana as possible, even creating a character who ends up bushranging for survival.

He said having the opportunity to feature his hometown, and its past, is something that means a lot.

“History can be boring to some people but there’s so much that went on at the stockade, on the goldfields, in Buninyong as a centre of the area, and Ballarat,” Moorman said.

“I like to bring the whole history forward and show what a squatter’s life was life, a shepherd’s life… The whole gamut.”

A sequel to The Gravel Pits is in development and will include some history of the Swan River settlement in Western Australia.

“I’m also interested in the Aboriginal side of history, and I’m going to bring that into the second book in a way that I can show it from their perspective, and how their culture was affected by the squatters taking their territory,” he said.

Head to bit.ly/3QAqrLq for an e-book or hardback copy of The Gravel Pits.