What draws a young boy living in the UK to the world of crocodiles over in Australia?

Well it was one of those childhood things, y’know, where you’re fascinated by dinosaurs. Only in my case it was crocodiles. It was basically I always wanted to get out of the UK to go and study crocs, and eventually I had the opportunity to do so.

After I had done my PhD in the UK I came out to Australia. So where did you first encounter crocodiles? Through the screen, the zoo?

Yeah, I visited the zoo many times when I was young, so I got to see crocs, and I always found them fascinating. I just thought that they were a little bit like living dinosaurs. So I thought why bother studying dusty bones, when you’ve got a living dinosaurs in front of you.

And obviously we know now that crocodiles aren't living dinosaurs, but it didn’t really matter to me when I was young! You’ve said in the past that when you got to Australia, the crocodiles were almost a hated animal…? Well yeah, that was the thing that brought me over here.

I was interested in the fact that you’ve got this animal that ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.