THE last time Ralph Grayden was featured in the South Coast Register he was the under 11 Bomaderry Swimming Club champion.
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Now the Sydney-based writer who grew up in North Nowra has cracked Amazon’s US bestsellers list with his debut novel, Page Three: a very London story.
“I wasn’t really a very good swimmer; it’s just that there weren’t many other good swimmers in my age group,” he recalled.
One thing he was good at, and has been since a very young age, was writing.
“I went to Bomaderry Preschool – Judy Bentley was a teacher there, I remember her encouraging me even then at four,” he said.
The writer, whose comedic novel about an Australian couple in London, recently came across a story he wrote in preschool called The Sick Dog.
“It was what you’d expect from a four-year-old, it wasn’t very complex. It was funny though,” he said.
Mr Grayden attended primary school at Illaroo Road during the early 1980s, a place he has fond memories of.
“I was one of those kids who was pretty much into everything, I was very into sport – every afternoon I had cricket practice, or rugby, or hockey or swimming. My poor parents must have just driven me from one place to the next,” he said.
He was also heavily involved in creative pursuits, including drama and public speaking.
His parents were both school teachers, his mother one of the first at Shoalhaven High School and his father a teacher at Bomaderry High School.
He attended a boarding school in Sydney and so Mr Grayden’s association with the Shoalhaven diminished from the age of around 13.
He does, however, have fond memories of growing up in North Nowra.
“Our house was always full of kids. My parents moved there in the 1970s when it was being built and I remember a lot of young families, it was a really great place to grow up,” he said.
Mr Grayden recalled BMX rides through local bush tracks and exploratory bush walks.
Last year he brought his two-year-old daughter to see the place where he grew up.
“I showed her around and I still have friends from primary school here,” he said.
So what was their reaction to his success?
“There have been one or two proclaiming they have known me the longest,” he laughed.
The book, which he wrote while in London, took him about six years to complete and to see it become a bestseller was extremely gratifying.
“It feels like a lot of hard work starting to pay off, it was a big strain on everything,” the former lawyer said.
Mr Grayden is in the process of writing a second novel from his home in Sydney, where he lives with his wife, daughter and one-week old son, as well as working as an advertising copywriter.
“It’s set in the world of advertising – and it will be another comedy,” he said.
While work is keeping him in the city at present, the author didn’t rule out a return to the Shoalhaven one day.
“It was a great place to be a kid, that’s what would take me back – to give my children the same kind of childhood as mine, which was innocent, compared to what you get in Sydney and other parts of the world.
“At the moment I have to be here, but you never know what’s going to happen,” he said.