Cirrus@Austlit

Thomas Hughes Naisby came from a working class family in the North East of England. He won a scholarship to a Jesuit secondary school, but was expelled. He then became a young musician in the British Army Parachute Regiment. He kept his tromboning skills throughout his life. After emigrating to Australia, he qualified as a High School music teacher in the 1960s, through the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music. In his thirties, he resolved to become a poet, due to the influence of Welsh poet T. H. Jones, whom he met at the Newcastle University College. He became a writer, editor, publisher, music adviser, critic, reviewer and broadcaster and made his permanent home in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. For many years he was a music critic and Poetry Editor for the Newcastle Herald.