Tom Law

Tom Law has lived on and off in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia for a period of nigh on forty years. Originally from England, he was educated at Melbourne High School and later at Monash University. He describes his academic progress as chequered. “The problem with education is that it can get in the way of living…” But Tom never lets the dust settle under his feet and seriously views learning as his life-blood along with exploration of everything. As a teacher of chemistry he has worked in many different countries, Indonesia and China in particular. This story is purely fictional but has some elements of personal experiences of a small timber mill community of which he was a part for some twenty years. Building his life and home ‘among the gum trees’ he developed a deep affinity and love for the natural environment of this unique part of Australia. “Very few places experience the convergence of bird life from such a wide range of habitats… forest, high plains and coastal dwellers all breeze in and out of this area, depending on the season and prevailing weather. Migratory types such as swallows visit from as far away as China. When I first came here as a young man I could distinguish between a wattle tree and a eucalyptus but that is where it ended. Now I can view a Blackwood and differentiate it from a variety of these trees.”

Tom built his first house from natural materials at hand… stone, timber, slate and whatever could be recycled from earlier building materials left over from the gold era of the mid-nineteenth century. “So many cultures have made an impact on this area in a brief frenetic period of gold mining. They came from China, Europe and North America in search of their fortunes. Some stayed, some died penniless and others returned home after some success. What now takes less than a two hour drive to a large regional town took three days at least by wagon and horse. The local cemetery tells tales of woe and grief from a bygone age of hardship and struggle difficult to comprehend in modern times.”

Tom has two adult sons from his first marriage plus a daughter and son from his second marriage to an Indonesian lady.