This account is written from memory, experience, and reflection.
It is not intended to sensationalise, embellish, or provoke. It exists to record a life shaped by institutional care, silence, service, and delayed reckoning. Where possible, events have been verified against available records. Where records no longer exist, lived experience remains.
This is not an account of grievance. It is a record of consequence.
I came from regular parents of English extraction in a country still struggling with post war conditions in 1959. Times were hard and employment scarce. Already my parents were not getting along. So, it was a humble beginning for myself and my elder brother, Gary, and despite being in an orphanage from a young age, I have never really spent too much time complaining about my life.
My maternal grandparents were staunch and very strict Scottish; they had disapproved the union between my parents from the very start and when it failed, they refused to provide support. I was to learn much later in life that it was my grandfather who was ultimately responsible for us being placed into the orphanage, when he told mum, “You need to get a job.” “But first of all, you need to get rid of those boys”. We learned from an early age to deal what was in front of us and to keep moving forward. That mindset - born from necessity rather than choice – shaped every chapter that followed. I recognise that while my life was never easy, it has been meaningful, dignified, and richer than my beginnings ever suggested it could be.
Life was never meant to be easy, it is what it is, and you will read I’ve learnt to adjust to the lows as well as the highs. Some of the unpleasant events we experienced were shared by others who lived under the same systems at the similar time. Their public corroboration confirmed what survivors have long known: these were not isolated incidents, but patterns enabled by institutional failure.
I write not for sympathy, but for accuracy. Not to reopen wounds, but to ensure they are acknowledged. It was not written in anger or regret, but in clarity. It is a record of endurance, service, and ultimately closure. Silence protected the wrong people for too long.
This is testimony, memoirs of my life as I recalled.

Two brothers.
Two thousand dunes.
One unfinished story.

Gary and Rick Canhan head out into the heart of the Simpson Desert and along the isolated Madigan Line, chasing the ghost of a canopy left behind years earlier. But the real weight in the vehicle isn’t gear — it’s memory.

Raised in a UK orphanage, their childhood was marked by loss, trauma, silence, and survival. Decades later, with families of their own and the wisdom of grandfathers, they return to the harshest landscape in Australia — not simply to retrieve what was left in the sand, but to confront something that was buried far deeper.

The ground hog of endless kilometers over countless dunes, engines and patience strain. Where sand and mud swallow tyres. While the desert offers solitude and peacefulness, it offers no mercy for the unwary. And as mechanical failures threaten to end the journey, the past rises with equal force.
Against a beautiful backdrop of endless red dunes and vast desert skies, Redemption in the Desert is more than an outback expedition — it is a reckoning. A story of resilience, brotherhood, and two men determined to reclaim more than a lost canopy, they were equally determined to reclaim a piece of the youth that was taken from them.

Some journeys cross deserts.
Others cross decades.

This one does both.

One man. One portal. One chance to change everything.
When miner Austin Jones survives a catastrophic underground collapse, he stumbles into a hidden world beneath the earth—an ancient tunnel system capable of moving people across time.
Stranded in a harsh future shaped by humanity’s failures, Austin finds refuge in a desert community where survival depends on trust, restraint, and respect for the land. But the past calls him back, and with it comes a discovery that will rewrite everything humanity believes about history, destiny, and its place in the universe.
From underground arenas carved with impossible symbols to time-lost journeys into 1890 Australia, Mayan Prophecies weaves a gripping tale of survival, love, sacrifice, and the terrifying responsibility of knowledge.
Because the future isn’t written.
It’s tested.
MAYAN PROPHERCIES: Return of the harbinger
Mayan Prophecies is a genre-blending science-fiction epic combining survival adventure, time travel, ancient mysteries, and environmental speculation. It asks one final question: If you could change the future, would you be brave enough to accept the cost?

Puzzled
The narrative builds with the unstoppable force of a freight train accelerating toward disaster. The reader senses what is coming and longs to intervene, yet the urge to scream goes unheard—echoing only within the mind.

Beneath The Southern Cross

A touch of science fiction with a distinctly Australian flavor leads the reader on a journey that feels almost timeless—one that may have you flicking back through the pages to re-read key moments.