Beneath Whose Hand

R.M Williams, bushman, grazier, folk hero, raconteur-in fact one of the great legends of our time. This is his story.

He left home in his teens and went bush. For months he trekked through the deserts and ranges of Central Australia as the camel-man of a two-man expedition. He then worked as a drover.

The sale of a handmade pack-saddle to Sir Sidney Kidman for five pounds was the beginning of a business which grew rapidly. Soon bushmen from all over Australia were sending 'cash with order' for R.M's classic elastic-sided boots and other products. The mail-order business made him wealthy and positioned him as a household name throughout the bush.

Always restless and enterprising, R.M has never been content to just be a businessman. The bush is his greatest love, and throughout his life he has remained as close to it as possible, droving, running cattle stations, and breeding and training horses. From gold mining in the Northern Territory to tea planting in the New Guinea Highlands, publishing poetry and establishing the Stockman's Hall of Fame, R.M Williams has earned his place as a hero of the Australian bush.

'... a great Australian in a manner all his own... I cannot begin to describe the fascination of this book. It is different. Biographies of Australians who have made their marks... proliferate. Not one of them I have read paints a picture of a man so vital, of so many parts, as R.M Williams.'-COURIER MAIL

'... the stuff of which bush heroes are made.'-BRISBANE SUN