But in practice Australia - the pluralism of Australia - sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.

Thomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s.

I must apologise because I know all writers have memories of being on the outer because it's the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.

The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.

Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.

But I was also a brat. I used to belong to a gang that went looking for fights with other gangs.