Lindsay Fox

My father was a truck driver. That's where it all started, and academically I was a disaster at school. My cousin got his name on the honour board; I, at Melbourne High School, I carved mine on the desk.

One of the nicest things about receiving the accolade of Australia is that, previously, the knighthood was historically for what was termed 'the establishment.' Now, this is an accolade for somebody who comes from a working-class background. Someone whose father was a truck driver and decided to buy a truck.

I'd worked at a small town newspaper, and I was thinking of all the strange stories that I had seen float through the newsroom in my time there that were dismissed as kind of amusing curiosities. Somehow from that I got to this idea of an eccentric alcoholic who built a lighthouse in the woods.