My PREVIOUS book was about what happened after I wrote Over the Top with Jim.

It was published in September  2003.

It is called On the Road to Anywhere

The book tells how I went about writing Over the Top, what my sister Gay did at the launch at the Boomerang Theatre in Annerley, and how all of the characters in the book turned up knocking on my door.

They were not always happy either.

Jim Egoroff arrived saying: “Open the door Lunn, you Bastard Boy, so I can punish you for your sins.” Brother Basher rang saying: “I’m gonna come round and rock your roof.”

It tells how Ian McNamara rang one night and said he wanted to serialize the book nationally on the ABC’s Australia All Over; and how I wanted to read the book on air, but failed the audition. Macca told me later: “I took your tape, put it in a brown paper bag and threw it in the creek.”

My original title for Over the Top was “A Child’s War” because of the battles with State School Kids, impure thoughts and public exams.

On the Road to Anywhere explains where the title eventually came from.

There are chapters on how I drew my breath in pain writing about Fred and Olive; extracts both funny and poignant from the thousands of letters I received from all over the world. I discovered that - despite globalism - ordinary Australian stories can inspire people when they come face-to-face with their own living memories.

There is a whole chapter on Macca’s concert at the Rialto Theatre in Brisbane’s West End in 1991: where Jim Egoroff turned up.

The book tells about touring the country with Ian McNamara and appearing in his concerts and the funny things that happened on stage. There is even a chapter about playing backyard cricket with Macca on Christmas Day 1995.

I didn’t score a hundred.

On the Road to Anywhere leads all around the country, stretching through time and place: from 1987 when I resigned to write Over the Top, until 1996 when I wrote it as a stage play for the first Brisbane Festival.

The book ends with the final scene from the stage play, directed by famous Australian actor Bille Brown (who was also script consultant) – which was seen by 12,000 people.

Fred is in the Melbourne Museum with Hughie. They are surrounded by the images of Australia in the 1950s -- the Ford Zephyr, the cake shop display cabinet, the statue of Our Lady, the Lunn dining room table... plus all the characters from the play: the Lunn family, Jim, Kenny Fletcher, the nuns.

They have all become exhibits in the museum of our memories.