Bruce Dowding, Australian Hero of the Resistance

This biography of Melbourne-born secret agent Bruce Dowding is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable young Australian whose story was previously unknown to me. Secret Agent, Unsung Hero is co-authored by Dowding’s nephew, lawyer and former West Australian ALP Premier Peter Dowding, and wide-ranging author Dr Ken Spillman. As it happens, Ken was a student of mine. Later, we were contributing co-editors of The Greatest Game, a ground-breaking collection of writing about Australian rules football, first published in 1988.

It is lucidly written and replete with useful black-and-white illustrations, but the book’s publishers have done readers a disservice by making the print size too small, challenging someone like me with poor eyesight. Nevertheless, I found slowly digesting this fine biography to be well worth the effort.

A gifted all-round sportsman whose father had played Aussie rules for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League, Bruce Dowding left Australia in January…