Our decrepit Shipping Reporter has discovered a surprising link with the late Colleen McCullough , author of the 1977 bestselling novel , The Thorn Birds .
Recently, while drifting through a North Queensland op shop , the waterfront roundsman found McCullough's above biography of Roden Cutler, V.C., a former diplomat who served in New Zealand , Ceylon , Egypt, Pakistan and New York before becoming Governor of New South Wales .
McCullough's first work of non-fiction, the dustjacket blurb revealed she was patron of the Gerontology Foundation of Australia . Gerontology is the study of old age and the process of ageing , the particular problems of old people .
It just so happens that the barnacle encrusted Shipping Reporter had been referred to a Townsville gerontologist, so it was nice to think that he and McCullough , who died aged 77, had a common interest .
Her estate , estimated to be worth $2.1million was the subject of a court battle , her Norfolk Island husband , Ric Robinson , a descendant of a Bounty mutineer , winning , the University of Oklahoma Foundation losing.
