Wanderer Pinney

At Home With World Wanderer Pinney

The exotic wanderings of Australian Peter Pinney—he is the late Sir Hubert Murray’s

grandson—have appeared from

time to time in half a dozen travel books about Greece, Africa and elsewhere but some of his most entertaining writing is in his latest, Restless Men, based right in Australia.

IN all his books he puts on a front of being among the most avant of the avant garde, a state of mind in which nothing matters but the fulfilment of the moment.

He carries this front into this book although when we last heard of him he seemed to be living a reasonably domesticated life some where on the North Queensland coast.

His new book is a collection of pieces, complete in themselves, but all strung together by the fact that he and they move along the Queens land coast, from prawning off South port to sharking off Mackay—with side exucursions as dish-washer at Mr. Reg Ansett’s Royal Hayman Hotel or as property man for an outfit making short television films in the Northern Territory.

"Cosy Togetherness"

Probably the most entertaining piece of the lot is his sojourn at Royal Hayman where the toothsome waitresses come in bikinis or black net tights and where the 70-odd un married staff have just as much fun as the guests, boys and girls “in cosy togetherness of adjoining two-bed cubicles”, or dancing with the hotel guests at the night club on the beach.

We should imagine that his des criptions of the lush wild life of Hayman will do nothing but good for Reg’s promotion department and that Royal Hayman expect a further increase in bookings as a result of Finney’s efforts.

The book itself is an attractive example of the book-designer’s art, with tropical dust-jacket in full colour and black and white pic

tures.-

JT.

(RESTLESS MEN. Angus and Robertson. $3.75.)