GREG T ROSS Diary of an independent publisher

As a preteen or young teenager, I’d had a dream of being the editor of a country or regional newspaper that was successful and punched above its weight. The dream was full of traditional domestic ideas with the knowledge that that may be disturbed at any time by the call-to-arms of a breaking story.

So now, I am the editor but also owner of a popular national magazine. My backyard is the country. I travel a lot. I work a lot. I have little rest. My day is full of interaction with wonderful people from all over. There’s not much chit-chat. Most of these are meaningful conversations. At the end of the day, I am usually a little tired. I’m tired also, of talking. I have a martini. I read the news. I gravitate to the kitchen. I play music. I eat dinner whilst watching the TV. I text. I bring in clothes from the clothes line. I make another cuppa and play more music. Tonight, a lot of the stuff was from 1972, the year my life in media started. In Sydney. On Broadway. At the Sydney Morning Herald.

So tonight, it was mostly stuff from 1972. And the solitude is important for me. It gives me a break.

A lot of this music I played tonight, I had originally bought at a shop not far from Central Railway Station. Back then, a lot of it was bootleg. Tonight, for a time, I was 15 or 16 again. As Lee Michaels might say, do you know what I mean?

A lot of the childhood dream has not happened but enough of it has, to make it still a dream come true.

And here, now, to have the opportunity to honour Remembrance Day with the release of the 31st edition of The Last Post.

In this edition we look at the growing crisis affecting a increasing number of Australians, the housing/homelessness dilemma. We visit WA and look at WA veterans, with help from Jeff Hughes’ This Story. We include a valued piece from Prof. Ben Waldham on the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. We interview Jeff Apter about his book, Don’t Dream It’s Over, the story on the remarkable life of singer/songwriter/ musician Neil Finn. We interview former Australian tennis great, Jelena Dokic. In this chat, Jelena talks about her new book, Fearless, where she shares stories of abuse and of the importance of finding your own voice.

A whole lot more, but I’ll leave that to you to discover. With Summer fast approaching and holidays, a message to embrace life and to take it easy, geez, that’s the title of another song that goes back to 1972.

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