The talented New Zealander, Barry Crump , subject of this Hodder Moa Beckett book, a pleasing acquisition , was more a Crocodile Dundee type than Australia's Paul Hogan .
He hunted many animals, wrote a book about his lively experiences crocodile shooting in Cape York, North Queensland , spending time in Cooktown and Cairns , fired many rifles and wielded a considerable number of large, sharp knives in his life .
Crump spent much of his life living in the bush , moving about from time to time , trapping rabbits , hunting , fishing . As a result of the title of his first book ,which sold 300,000 copies, he became known as A Good Keen Man , based on the life of a deer culler .
The book about crocodile shooting , Gulf, published in 1964 , was later changed to Crocodile Country. Another of his books bore the title Bastards I Have Met , which sold well .
This blogger , who spent some years in Kiwiland , followed the activities of Crump , and for some uncertain reason attributes to him a story that a woman married to a ranger left him because he regarded ground up deer antler as a powerful aphrodisiac which he had on his porridge each morning . Crump married five times .
With a partner , George Johnston, Crump ran bush camps for boys and at one in 1969 five teenagers drowned in Lake Matahina after a vehicle accident . Both were charged with manslaughter , later dropped .
This blogger , who spent some years in Kiwiland , followed the activities of Crump , and for some uncertain reason attributes to him a story that a woman married to a ranger left him because he regarded ground up deer antler as a powerful aphrodisiac which he had on his porridge each morning . Crump married five times .
Like Paul Hogan , Crump was regarded as something of a larrikin and regularly appeared on TV, excelled in a show Town and Around causing laughter with outlandish yarns and jokes . In recent years he became the star of a series of television adverts for Toyota Hilux and also wrote poetry .
His 24 books, still in demand , have sold well over a million copies . When Sydney's King's Cross Whisper launched the Kiwi Whisper in the l960s it ran a spoofy item about Crump which apparently incurred his wrath and he threatened to sue .
