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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, one day I\u2019ll sit down and do something creative to keep my mind active,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always read history rather than fiction. I decided I\u2019d write a book that had history behind it and give people some knowledge they may never have learnt about at school.\u201d<\/p>\n
First came his debut novel Abandoned Warriors Riding High<\/em>, inspired by the Vietnam War, but late last year, Moorman released his second book, The Gravel Pits<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fictional historical story which tells of an Australian colonial family\u2019s 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Moorman has included as much Australiana as possible, even creating a character who ends up bushranging for survival.<\/p>\n He said having the opportunity to feature his hometown, and its past, is something that means a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cHistory can be boring to some people but there\u2019s so much that went on at the stockade, on the goldfields, in Buninyong as a centre of the area, and Ballarat,\u201d Moorman said.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to bring the whole history forward and show what a squatter\u2019s life was life, a shepherd\u2019s life… The whole gamut.\u201d<\/p>\n A sequel to The Gravel Pits is in development and will include some history of the Swan River settlement in Western Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also interested in the Aboriginal side of history, and I\u2019m 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Head to bit.ly\/3QAqrLq for an e-book or hardback copy of The Gravel Pits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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. \u201cI thought, one day I\u2019ll sit down and do something creative to keep my mind active,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what the book was going to be […]<\/p>\n