A Fortunate Life

Albert Facey’s story is the story of Australia. Born in 1894, and first sent to work at the age of eight, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a laborer and farmer and jackaroo, becoming lost and then rescued by Indigenous trackers, then gaining a hard-won literacy, surviving Gallipoli, raising a family through the Depression, losing a son in the Second World War, and meeting his beloved Evelyn with whom he shared nearly sixty years of marriage. Despite enduring unimaginable hardships, Facey always saw his life as a fortunate one. A true classic of Australian literature, Facey’s simply penned story offers a unique window onto the history of Australian life through the greater part of the twentieth century – the extraordinary journey of an ordinary man.

A.B. Facey was in the Eleventh Battalion at the Gallipoli landing; after the war, he became a farmer under the Soldier Settlement Scheme but was forced off the land during the Depression. He joined the tramways and was active in the Tramways Union. Although he had no formal education, he taught himself to read and write. He made the first notes on his life soon after World War I, and filled notebooks with his accounts of his experiences. Finally, on his children’s urging, he submitted the handwritten manuscript to the Press. He died in 1982, nine months after A Fortunate Life had been published to wide acclaim.