Most people live a hum-drum life following the set patterns of society.  Others seek to break out by chasing adventure and excitement.  A few, a special few, create their own worlds and live a life of which most of us can only dream.

Deny King was one of these special people.  He was a farmer and a miner, an environmentalist and scientific collector, a hermit and an adventurer.  Christobel Mattingley’s biography of him has you wondering how anyone could achieve so much, influence so many others, while still maintaining his privacy and integrity.

Deny King’s domain was the remote south west of Tasmania.  For more than 50 years he lived self-sufficiently in a region only accessible by foot through rugged wilderness or by boat along some of the most treacherous coastline in the world. Yet he corresponded with leading scientists around the world about plants and birds, he identified and protected rare and endangered species and had several new discoveries named after him. He courted his wife for several years by letter after meeting her in hospital during his war service and then built her a house and all its furniture.  He sailed several times a year round the fierce seas south of Tasmania to Hobart, delivering tin that he mined by hand. He painted and exhibited.  He was an icon among bushwalkers, building huts, cutting tracks, and providing shelter and hospitality to anyone who came.  Yet he was also a shy, retiring man, uncomfortable in the public gaze.

This life that he chose, and then lived so successfully, is meticulously detailed by Christobel Mattingley, who met him just a few weeks before his death in 1991.  She draws on his copious diaries and the memories of so many people whose lives he touched.  His daughters and grandchildren, famous figures like Sir Edmund Hillary and Senator Bob Brown who worked with him in his conservation efforts, bushwalkers and racing yachties whom he sheltered, the governors, parliamentarians and even royalty who visited his corner of the world; all find their place in his story as he strives to achieve what is important to him.

Yet Mattingley does not write a story of great exciting adventures.  She simply details the events of his life, year after year like a diary, following the turn of the seasons - both natural and human.  The achievements sneak up on the reader as you are drawn into the gentle peace that Deny found in his world.  The tiny details of flowers each spring, and the birds that delighted and befriended him, or the perils of leaking boats or abandoned campfires are vividly created by Mattingley as she builds a picture of a man in harmony with his world.  You soon understand why he lived so remotely when the jarring demands of bureaucrats and journalists and tourists and commercial interests keep invading his paradise.

This is an inspiring story, well supported by photos and a detailed index.  It gives a glimpse into the life that many of us would love to live if only we had the opportunity, or the courage.

Review by David Beagley

© 2001 David Beagley