I was born in Australia in 1969; surrounded by miles of deep red dirt in one direction and salt lakes in the other. My first job was working at a gold mine on school holidays. Incidentally, my dad worked there too. Did this make a man out of me? No. Although, I was able to experience the danger of cyanide and ore crushers.

After I finished school I entered the world of sheep shearing. If it sounds glamorous, think again. Imagine working in a huge tin shed in forty-five degree heat; with red-back spiders falling from the roof because it’s too hot. All the same, I loved the work and got to travel around the country doing it. I can navigate my way around a sheep (slowly); but my main jobs were as a Roustabout, a Wool Presser and finally, a Wool Classer. Did this make a man out of me? No. Although, I did learn that maggots are not man’s best friend.

Where next? Well, a mate of mine was getting a job on a fishing boat and I thought; that sounds fun, I’d like to do that too. Did it matter that I got sea sick? YES. But more about that in a minute. The fishing boat - called the JEDDA 2 and skippered by a temperamental Italian, named Mario - worked the waters of Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Tasmania. If it sounds glamorous, think again. Remember one important fact: fishing boats don’t have toilets. Use your imagination! And think big waves; VERY BIG WAVES. So what were we fishing for, you ask? Oh, a little thing called SHARKS. No sardine fishing for me. Just in case you were wondering - when I was a kid in Australia, fish and chips didn’t mean ‘cod and chips’; it meant ‘shark and chips’. So back to Bass Strait: we’re talking Blue Sharks, Bronze Whalers, Short-fin Makos, School Sharks, Dog Sharks, Gummy Sharks, Seven-gill Sharks, Spurred Dog-sharks, and the occasional amazing, Great Hammerhead. Did shark fishing make a man out of me? No. Although, I did learn how to throw up while ten foot waves were crashing across the deck.

Somehow, I found myself on dry land after that. The Nullarbor Plain to be exact. That’s the stretch of road that cuts across the bottom of Australia. The ONLY road. I worked at a truck stop. Think: big rigs and truck drivers (with short shorts and gold nuggets hanging around their necks). It was a typical job really: fuelling cars, washing windscreens, changing tyres, fuelling trucks, fuelling planes, removing scorpions from the restaurant, removing Huntsman Spiders from the showers, lighting runway flares so that the Flying Doctor could land at night, removing Death Adders from the kitchen, and battling thousands of mice during a rodent plague. Standard stuff actually. The truck stop was called Caiguna (population: 9). Look it up on Google Maps. Go on, I dare you. Oh, and make sure you use the satellite view - so you get a really good sense of how IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE this place is. Did working at a truck stop make a man out of me. No. Although, I did learn how to turn bore water into drinking water, and I met a goat, named Edna, who drank beer.

And now I live in London. Here, I don’t have anywhere near as many creepy-crawlies to deal with. The only time I get motion sickness is when I’m in the back of a taxi and the driver goes over too many speed humps. But has London made a man out of me? YOU BET IT HAS! Have you taken the Underground at rush hour? Or battled the queues at Waitrose after 5.30pm? Or climbed the 528 steps to the top of St Paul’s Cathedral along with hordes of camera-toting tourists? You need to be hard to live in this city. HARD, I tell you! I’m getting tired just thinking about it. No, that’s a lie. I LOVE living in London. It’s a fantastic city. And it’s the place that inspired me to become a writer.

So, does any of this actually qualify me to write books? I guess you’ll have to decide for yourselves.

Don’t forget, you can read my short and sweet posts on Twitter: @phillip_norman