Joint Authors
Douglas E. M. Young & Betty M. Young
Betty was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on 3 September 1932. She passed on from this life on 14 May 2018.
Doug was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on 9 April 1935. He is still with us and will be for many years to come, as he and Betty relate the adventures of Adonis & Aphrodite as they make known to us what life will be like in the next Millennium.
Betty and Doug were born into the Great Depression and entered primary school in the early years of the Second World War. Betty attended Ogilvie High School and Doug, Hobart High School. They both left school for work at the end of fourth-year, as a university qualification was self-funded in those days and neither wanted to become financial burdens on their parents.
Doug likes to tell the story of their meeting: on a cold winter’s-night in 1952. “I saw Betty across a crowded ballroom, the band was playing Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific. Like in the song, I went to her side and claimed her. With work, accountancy studies and National Service it was the nineteenth of March 1955 before we could marry.”
With babies in 1956,1957 and 1960 Betty soon became a full-time homemaker. Doug completed his accountancy studies in 1958 and over the next fourteen years gained a wide experience in commercial practice and industry in general. In 1972 he was appointed head-of-department – Business Studies at the Devonport College of TAFE.
“The job seemed to have been waiting for me,” Doug said. “It gave me the opportunity to develop business simulations and games to bring active vocational training into office-work. Remarkably, it is only now, forty-nine years later, that the technology exists to take this remarkable facility to the world. Initially, our son set up a printery to produce the simulations and Betty joined in to typeset for him. Along the way I took up the suggestion to write an accounting package, and training simulations, for the early desk-top computers. I got stuck in the computer software business for quite a few years.”
“I can’t see any connection here, Doug, as to where Adonis and Aphrodite came from.”
“In 2003, following a health concern I handed over my computer clients to my grandson. When I recovered, I was pestered by an old friend to develop one last package for him. As a working name I called it This is It. In 2009, after another medical event, I retired for the second time. This time when I recovered, I found I could no long write software or present what I had to a prospect. I turned to writing fiction.”
“But where did you get Adonis and Aphrodite?”
“I really don’t know, other than having been led to them on the web as I explored ancient fables.”
“Did Betty approve of your theme?”
“Again, I don’t know. In one of my earlier attempts at fiction she made suggestions that I followed and then apologised for having influenced me. She decided to wait until I had a finished a manuscript before commenting in future. I’d say that before she passed, she might not have approved, but since she has, she has told me, everyone loves them.”
“You still talk to Betty, Doug?”
“Yes, since the day she passed. She knew that she was going. I had a stroke a year ago and she had been afraid I might go first, she didn’t want that to happen. Betty believed my writing was important and I must continue. The big smile she gave me and the little hankie she put in my hand as they wheeled her into the examination room told me, she knew she had won.”
“So now at eight-three you are going to continue to write?”
“Yes, a clairvoyant told me forty-five years ago that I would be starting a new career when most other people were retired or given-up. I believe I can describe myself as an author now, Betty believes I am, and I can only be beaten if I give-up.”
“I wish you the best of luck with you endeavours, Doug.”
“I’d be happier if you wished me good health,” I said.