“I’ve seen how fate, or chance, always plays a role in everyone’s life,” Mr Saxon said.

Mr Saxon is a local history buff and former school teacher and principal who has written and self-published 16 books.

Among them was Morisset Memories (2016), and the histories of Bonnells Bay, Eraring and Awaba public schools.

Researching local history can involve a lot of spade work, and arriving at dead ends – especially when schools haven’t been as diligent with their archives as they might have been.

But Mr Saxon said that with experience, he’d learned how to pursue different avenues of inquiry, and where to focus his search for detail.

The research for his books has taken him to Melbourne and Sydney, and into the state archives. But his most valuable resource is people.

“It’s the interviews that I do with people that often reveals the most interesting information,” he said.

“No matter when I write these books, it’s that something that you turn up that you don’t expect that makes all the work worthwhile.”

Mr Saxon recently self-published his latest non-fiction book, Michael Scott – An Artistic Life.

It’s the story of a former student at Bonnells Bay Public School (formerly Morisset East Public School), who went on to become a lawyer, Catholic priest, radio broadcaster and one of the instigators of the Blake Prize for religious art.

Mr Saxon said he was the principal at Bonnells Bay Public School in 1983 when he first became aware of Mr Scott.

“I received a letter from a Mr Scott, who was then living in Ireland, seeking information about the school that he had attended from 1915 until the end of 1917,” he said. 

Mr Scott said he was planning to write an account of those “incredibly happy days in the little bush school”.

Michael Scott – An Artistic Life comprises 162 A4-size pages and 90 photographs.

It costs $30 and is available from Morisset Public School and McLean's Books, in Hamilton.