Dancing Bare is the light-hearted memoir of Rigby, an impossibly innocent young man, swaps the suffocating confines of middle class New Zealand for love and liberation in nineteen-sixties London and Europe. Revelling in the freedom conferred by anonymity, he becomes an actor, stripper, rent boy, lover, teacher and dedicated traveller through Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, where travellers were uncommon and countries still retained many of the differences that made travelling so interesting. Rigby meets with a wide variety of people, life styles and customs, eventually settling in Paris where the state did not consider his sexuality to be a criminal offence. A moving and amusing story of hope and love, sex and sexuality, theatrical showmanship and artless innocence, laced with a little philosophical speculation as he wanders the world in pursuit of true love.
I live on several acres of rainforest in sub-tropical Queensland, Australia with my partner. I've published five novels:- 'NumbaCruncha' 'Sebastian', 'Jarek', 'Dome of Death', & 'The Price of Freedom'; a biography - 'Dancing Bare' , and a volume of short stories:- 'Time to Think'. I write the sort of fiction I like to read - fast paced with some danger and heroes who are decent, honest, reliable and unafraid to make decisions, and who reckon that more than enough is too much. I have always enjoyed the symbolism of Renaissance Art in which, among other things, purity, honesty and truthfulness is depicted by nudity. Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love” and Michelangelo’s "Sistine Ceiling" and “Doni Tondo” are obvious examples. It is in that sense that I use nudity in my novels. Only the good guys run around naked. Nude is not rude! Actions can be evil or good; bodies are merely natural vessels and, if well maintained, are admirable. My characters live in the real world, not in a ghetto. They just happen to be gay and any sex is part of the story, not gratuitous or explicit. All my novels are set in tropical Australia.