‘I’m the storyteller, you’re the writer, and this is our book.’

The late Vince Copley, a First Nations man and Ngadjuri Elder, was much loved and a good friend to many. This book is his life story, which he and I wrote together during 2020 and 2021.

Vince lived in Australia through a period of intense social change from the 1940s on. He was in the thick of work Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were doing to live their lives free of the unfair laws that had affected them since Europeans arrived on their traditional lands.

Vince was also a gifted sportsman. He loved playing football and cricket, and he enjoyed nurturing talent in people young and old.

A few months into our work on the book, Vince read some of the early draft chapters and said to me: ‘I’m the storyteller, you’re the writer, and this is our book.’ For him this was reconciliation in action: an Indigenous person and a non-Indigenous person working together to make something good to share with others.

We finished the manuscript just a few weeks before Vince died in early 2022. He was 85. ABC Books published it later in the year. 

Published by ABC Books

Available at Dymocks, QBD Books or your local bookshop

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Lea’s work on the Young Readers Edition was assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.