Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM (3 August 1920 – 14 October 2012) was an Australian children’s writer and journalist. (Wikipedia)
Further, he was my maternal grandfather’s cousin. Grandma was always somewhat proud of this and keen on his writings, especially his regular column in the Adelaide Advertiser. She used to send me clippings, many of which I pasted into scrapbooks.
I’ve now photographed and scanned many of these as some form of record and tribute.
If you are new to Max’s writings, I recommend starting with Unacustard as I am…—it’s a pretty good intro to his style of humour.
I have tended, out of personal taste, to prefer his light-hearted prose pieces, but there are a few examples of his verses and a few of his more serious articles, these latter tagged “Saturday Spread” as that was usually the Advertiser column they were published under.
Enjoy…
Browse Max’s work
(full list of what’s on this site—see below the list for links to a couple of smaller subsets)
- Return to sender, up Birdsville way
- Sense of value
- Separating ways in the days before packaging
- Sneer at the end of the line
- Solemn rite of season’s first paddle
- Springing into new attire
- Struck off the rolls
- Tapping the blues for a nip
- The age of rage
- The day post offices opened up the world
- The delicate art of bikkie dunking
- The name of the game
- The not-so-artful dodger…
- The yellow peril
- There’s many a trip
- Too blooming right!
- Trial by marriage
- TV peeves
- Unacustard as I am…
- Welcome… I’m off!
Tagged subsets of Max’s writings
If you just prefer a straightforward, non-paginated listing, it’s here (but it’s quite long!)