I was born in Sydney, Australia in 1956. Men's work started with the benefit of hindsight when I was almost 5 years old on my first day of kindergarten. Jimmy Stevens walked up to me, I smiled at him and he punched me in the nose. He went to do it again and I punched him in the nose before he could hit me again. We both stood there with tears welling up holding our noses and decided to be friends. Jimmy was my best friend for the next four years.
The push was on during my childhood to get all our family out of the "trades". I come from a line of merchant sea men and ships engineers. It was the root to freedom and a good life away from Scotland for dispossessed Highland Scots. Studying Chemistry was my way out. I am still making my living from formulations that I developed. The condom lubricant "Wet Stuff" is my most successful product. It has been important in the campaign to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS. I have been selling it to public health campaigns at cost for the last ten years.
I have been an activist since leaving home at eighteen- in the anti-war, inner city housing, environment, peer counselling and anti-nuclear movements, among others.
Organizing men's groups began when I was twenty. Soon after I started living with my first partner. As I assisted her to get stronger, I really needed to talk with other men. After a few years of false starts I was sitting on a beach with two mates and we just listened to the story of each others lives. We were spell bound. After that few hours we invited all our mates over one night per week. It was the start of the men's movement for me. I have been organizing men's groups and building towards a movement ever since.
Out of the cluster of men's groups that formed and developed, one of the groups started organizing a yearly men's festival in Sydney- about 100 men at a bush camp for seven days. I persisted for 8 years in working on this yearly men's gathering.
In 1983 I was sent along to a course in peer counselling to get some skills for the men's group I was part of. Re-evaluation Counselling (RC) has been a pioneer organisation in the development of men's work. It's founder Harvey Jackins has had the guts and integrity to speak of men as an oppressed group by society (not by women or children) since 1985. My men's emotional work is informed by my experience with RC. I have been the Men's Reference Person for Australia for that organisation since 1992. Since 1994 I have been leading an annual 5 day conference for men in Australian Re-evaluation Counselling, teaching, leading and developing the liberation of men from the rigidities of our socialization's and cultures, as well as many smaller events.
In 1988 I founded the Sydney Men's Network to develop men's groups as a permanent part of men's lives. One of the early campaigns was a march against the blight on our population of sexual abuse and rape. I was the first person I'm aware of to speak out against the sexual abuse of males by both males and females. I called for the making public of this form of abuse. Soon after a number of prominent men spoke publicly about their histories as survivors of childhood sexual abuse from both male and female perpetration. The silence was broken at least in Australia. The network has been quietly growing giving a core of experience to help men start men's group where long term emotional work can be started and developed. The work of the network is based in Re-evaluation Counselling.
By 1990 there was a embryonic men's movement but still most men were cringing from leadership. I invited Charlie Kriener an international men's leader for a string of workshops around Australia and a men's leaders conference in Sydney. The following year I organised the First Conference on Men's Issues with Peter West the founder of the Australian Academic Men's Network, drawing academics and men's movement men together. The boys education debate came to the for publicly from this conference. Since that time I have been regularly briefing press, media and others interested in men.
The Australian and New Zealand Men's Leaders Conference which has become a key men's movement event began in 1992 with Robert Ware, Michael Flood and myself bring together key men from around Australia. Since 1994 the event has been annual and a key to the development of links between the rapidly growing number of men's organizations.
In December 1993 my son Christopher was born. He remains the most inspiring male that I have ever met since meeting my dad.