![]() ![]() He enlisted in the RAF at the outbreak of WWII and served as an intelligence officer in Egypt, Palestine and Greece during which time he met Manoly Lascaris, a Greek army officer, who became his life partner. ![]() His first novel, Happy Valley, which he had commenced while jackarooing, was published in 1939. When his father died in 1937 White was independently wealthy, living and writing in London and for a while in the US. He left school early and jackarooed for a couple of years on an uncle’s 28 square mile station in the Snowy Mountains (similar country to and maybe 100 kms SE of Miles Franklin’s families’ properties) before returning to England to study French and German Literature at Cambridge. Born into a firmly upper class life, he lived as a child in Sydney and on his family’s properties in the Hunter Valley (NSW), he and his sister were brought up by a nanny, and at age 12 he was sent to boarding school in England. ![]() Patrick White (1912-1990) is an unlikely candidate for the title of Australia’s best writer. ![]()
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