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Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
The original world war 2 jeep – about the size of a VW beetle with the engine at the front and without a roof – is a legend. In 1942 the US military developed an amphibious version, with a boat shell over the top (a roof at last!) although it wasn’t all that successful or widely used. A West Australian, Ben Carlin, who served in World War 2 in India, saw the amphibious jeep and became obsessed with the idea of circumnavigating the world in one. He acquired one, christened it “Half-Safe”, and taught himself the mechanical skills to maintain the vehicle. He had no GPS nor satellite radio, and no sponsors to track his journey. And he really did it! New York to New York, 1947 to 1957. What he thought would take 6 months took 10 years. How’s that for tenacity? He crossed the Atlantic in it, crossed deserts, changed wives midstream, and with the aid cigarettes, the bottle and even amphetamines he made it. This is a rollicking story of his journey, which will appeal to anyone with a spirit of adventure. And if you want to see the amphibious jeep that Ben travelled in, it’s sheltered here in W.A. at Guildford Grammar School – where Ben Carlin had been a student in the 1920s.
