Richard Bradley

A very adventurous, outdoorsy childhood.

As a kid, I was very curious and naughty.

And I learned to love the rush of fear and danger.

I learned to swim in a little place called Ivanhoe Crossing on the Ord River with saltwater crocodiles.

My father was a bush pilot, a mustering pilot.

He flew fixed-wing helicopters.

The people I grew up with were cowboys, they were helicopter musterers, they were bull riders.

My childhood is littered with plane crashes and chopper crashes.

My father himself had had several aviation wrecks, fortunately none with me, but through the course of my childhood, whether it was crocs or the bush or, you know, bush aviation,

I was exposed to events where life often hung in the balance and I think subliminally you get used to this sort of existence where there's a heightened sense of we've got to make this work now because we don't know what's going on tomorrow.

My father flew me up to Darwin and put me on a jet plane that took me down to Sydney and I was basically inserted into a proprietary school for boys.

And nothing prepares an eight-year-old boy for that.

had a real problem with authority.

I ran away.

I had problems.

They nearly kicked me out.

I worked out how to take a beating and get on with it.

So yeah, life was a bit of a dichotomy.

You know, you had this sort of one life where you had to follow the rules and there was corporal punishment and there was beatings and bullyings and all the hierarchy that comes with it.

It was very Victorian.