Greg Tingle: From Newport Boy To Media Man
Chapters
Newport Days
Mum and Dad
The Kurrajong Farm and Friends
Brookfield Fair
Truckstops and the Sydney Waterfront
The tough Brisbane schoolyards
Military fun and games
Close Calls
War and Peace at The Sydney Water Board
Cable Guy to Big Tech
The Food Biz
Grappling with Life, Combat Sports and Business
Bohemian and Showgirls promoting
Bondi Beach Stunts
Red Carpet to Green And Blue Carpet
Maroubra Days
The Agency
Wins, Losses and Draws
Aboriginal and The Originals Connection
Off The Grid and Outback Adventures
Eco Warrior
Community People Power
Sports Cars, Trucks to No Car
The Higher Power
Chameleon and playing a role to suit
When news becomes too real; Censorship of truth and protests
Eye Openers
Fact is always stranger than Fiction
What now and what next?
Intro drat
Tingle here, or Fruit Tingle, GT, Maroubra Seal or Media Man depending on what circle of friends and associates you ask.
Firstly, thanks for waiting all these years for my book...God knows it's been a marathon wrestling match to have finally completed it and to have gotten it out of my head and into print. The world has been lifted off my shoulders.
Funny thing is I've helped promote dozens of books over the past two decades in the course of my Media Man business,.and things have finally slowed down just enough to finally finish my own. Back in 2010 I actually even got publicity for my own book in The Age and SMH, when the journos were doing a feature on my business and "Illuminating" website, as the journo X put it. So, it pays to be different - sometimes.
My earliest memories of Newport include learning to walk, spilling Weetbix down my bib at the beach grannyflat, visiting our horse at Bardo Rd, just around the corner from Newport Primary School, which I would end up attending, bamboo shoots on fire I the backyard, and getting buried up to my head in sand at Yachtsman's Paradise. The Newport connection is thanks to Mum and Dad, as I was born at Mona Vale Hospital and my parents met through the local school dance nights . Dad often parked one or two of his trucks and trailers in the large front yard at Yachtsman's and other time at the Newport Beach carpark, opposite 376 Barrenjoey Road, where we sometimes also lived. We had about three main based on the Northern Beaches, and then there were the Western Suburbs and Sydney Waterfront hauts, and the farm up at Kurrajong, North of Windsor and Colmo.
We ended up relocating to Brisbane s Western Suburbs when I was about 10 so we could have more of a stable family life, as my Mum Beverley was working as a part-time art teacher, specializing in oil painting and sketching, and Mum started to become more reliant on her Mum, Elvie for help at home, and later helping raise my sister Teena, along with my Auntie Annette. Dad's truck driving work was mainly in Sydney and this was a catalyst for disturbing our family life. When I was 14 Mum and Dad got divorced and Dad went back to Sydney. Months later I would join Dad courtesy of a one way plane ticket from Brisbane Airport after I started acting up at Nana's Brookfield estate.
