A Child of the Dreamtime is a work of fiction about Albert, a part Aborigine boy in Australia who is adopted by a white farm laborer and his wife and raised by them on a farm in the sub-tropical part of Australia’s east coast. Albert’s adoptive parents are very puritanical. However, Albert grows up to experiment with sex and drugs. This novel seeks to interweave elements of spirituality and human drama into a descriptive character study. When Albert is grown, he is migrates to the United States, where he holds various jobs but later becomes unemployed and survives years of homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles. Eventually, during a trip back to Australia, Albert learns much about his Aborigine heritage and attends a secret Aborigine ceremony.

Alan Knox was born in Australia and grew up on a farm near the town of Burringbar, which is, about five hundred miles to the north of Sydney. He came to the United States in 1971 and has lived here ever since. He has resided in Tennessee and California. He is a graduate of El Camino College in California and now studies at California State University. His greatest academic interest is linguistics. However, he also enjoys history, anthropology and political science.

By Nadine Fisher

After spending his childhood years on farm near Burringbar and later moving into the town of Burringbar itself, United States resident Alan Knox has gone on to write a novel based on his life.

The book, A Child of the Dreamtime, was released in August and follows his life from birth to 1996 when it was written.

Mr. Knox was born in Brisbane in 1948 and adopted by Burringbar couple Heather and Ted (Edward) Knox the same year.

He spent his childhood on the family farm outside of Burringbar – The Greenhalgh farm – before moving to the town of Burringbar in 1966.

He was a student at Upper Burringbar Primary School and later Murwillumbah High School moving to the United States in 1971.

Mr. Knox said this was his first novel, and he planned to write at least another six, and if his ideas kept flowing, perhaps even more.

"Since my teens, I knew that someday I would write a book," he said. "And it took just six weeks of work to complete this book, which is based on my challenging and dramatic life."

"I suffered some difficulties in the workplace and spent a decade as a homeless person on the streets of Los Angeles before turning to criminal acts that eventually saw me incarcerated."

Mr. Knox said he had fond memories of life on the family farm, and although it was a spartan existence, it was wonderful growing up in a quiet rural village."

"Back then children were innocent and allowed to be children," he said. "Whereas now, they are inundated with information and become sophisticated at a very young age."

I was through his incarceration and writing that he turned his life around.

"This is because writing is my true vocation and I love writing – It took me just six weeks to complete this novel, and it was written with pen and paper," he said.

"I was incarcerated after a series of written terrorist acts to former employer Mobil Oil Refineries in the LA area, and I was sentenced to one year in the LA County Jail," he said.

"With the help of psychiatrists and counselors in jail, I was able to get some government-assisted housing, but they helped little with the emotional difficulties I was experiencing."

"I spent just five months in the LA County Jail, which is an extremely tense and violent place and could be the topic of an entire book itself."

Since that time, Mr. Knox has completed an Associate Diploma of Arts, is due to complete a Bachelor of Arts with a major in sociology this year and plans to go on to study for a Master of Arts.

"I think I may teach, perhaps at high school, after that," he said.

Mr. Knox has visited Australia three times since leaving and each time has visited Burringbar.

He said he plans to write his second book later this year on the history of the Greenhalgh family and another based on the history of the NSW north coast area.

A Child of the Dreamtime can be ordered through the Internet at www.1stbooks.com.us

–From Tweed Heads, Australia, Daily News, October 26, 2002

On the east coast of Australia, about five hundred miles north of Sydney, there is a delightful green valley called the Burringbar Valley. To the west, Mount Chowan towers majestically over the valley. Burringbar Creek has its source in the mountains a little to the south of Mount Chowan, collects several tributaries, including Ophir Glen Creek, flows through the town of Burringbar, is joined by its major tributary, Crabbe’s Creek, and flows on to the Pacific Ocean, which can be seen from almost any hilltop in and around the Burringbar Valley.

Ever since the Dreamtime, the Burringbar Valley was inhabited by Aborigines. In the Dreamtime, humans enjoyed close and blessed communion with the gods. At some point, however, humans lost their innocence and the Dreamtime was no more.

European settlement of the Burringbar Valley and of the neighboring Tweed, Brunswick, Richmond and Clarence Valleys began in the 1830’s. The Aborigines who inhabited these valleys were of the Bandjalang tribe. Well before the close of the nineteenth century, the Bandjalang were displaced by the European settlers and herded into segregated communities, including some in the Lismore area. The Bandjalang lived under conditions of great poverty in their segregated communities and had no civil rights.

In the middle of the twentieth century, people of many nationalities lived in the Burringbar Valley. There were English, Scots, Irish, Netherlanders, Belgians, Germans, French, lots of Italians, lots of Greeks, Macedonians, Serbians, Croatians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and others. North of the Burringbar Range, in the Tweed Valley, there were also Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese. A Chinese family owned and operated one of the major grocery stores in Murwillumbah. This four-syllable Bandjalang place name is stressed on the second syllable.

Prejudice against people of Mediterranean origin was widespread and intense. Mediterraneans were contemptuously called "meds" and other inflammatory ethnic names including "dagos", "wogs" and "wops". Indians and Pakistanis, whatever their religion, were contemptuously called "Hindus."

The Anglo-Saxons chose to ignore the fact that their own ancestors were barbarians who worshipped Woden and Thor. The Anglo-Saxons looked down on and despised meds. Every Sunday, however, they went to church and worshipped a med. In the Burringbar Valley and in the neighboring valleys, brawls between Anglo-Saxons and Mediterraneans were commonplace. Sometimes when Mediterraneans went into a pub, some uncultured Anglo-Saxons would begin calling them inflammatory ethnic names and a brawl would break out. Other times, Mediterraneans would speak their native language in a pub. Many uncultured Anglo-Saxons resented the beautiful sound of certain languages of the Mediterranean region, especially the supremely beautiful sound of Italian. Therefore, when Mediterraneans spoke their native language in a pub, the result was often a brawl. Many a pub was destroyed in these ethnic brawls.

The Burringbar Valley and the neighboring valleys were rural. Yet, there was a lot of culture. Burringbar, like every village, had a school of arts, which was a theater, cinema, dance hall and banquet hall combined. Every town with a population of five thousand or more had a philharmonic society, a symphony orchestra and a public library as well as a school of arts. In towns of this size the streets were always crowded and lively.

The western end of the Burringbar Valley, because of its higher elevation, is called Upper Burringbar. It is composed of two main gullies. The more southerly of these is called Ophir Glen. Residents of Ophir Glen refer to the other gully as, simply, "the other gully." In Ophir Glen, three miles from the town of Burringbar, there is a farm called the Greenhedge farm. Through the Greenhedge farm flows Greenhedge Creek. It is a tributary of Ophir Glen Creek which, in turn, is a tributary of Burringbar Creek.