'I was born in the river town of Bourke on the 22 April 1951 and was educated firstly at the local Convent then later Bourke High School.
My interest in writing Bush Ballads surfaced quite unexpectedly in my latter years of High School when I was supposed to write a composition about the drought........The resulting effort was the Ballad, The Day the Rain Came, and ever since then, all my thoughts seem to arrange themselves in verse.'
Source: Original Bush Ballads/Garry Helm. Orange NSW: G.J. and K.C. Helm, 1992
