Tom Cole was born in England in 1906 but left when he was 17, travelling to Australia in search of adventure. During his working life he wore many hats – crocodile hunter, stockman, drover, miner, horsebreaker, station owner, buffalo hunter and coffee grower, to name but a few. Tom's autobiography, Hell West and Crooked, was published in 1988 and has since become a bestseller. He died in 1995.
