Author profile...Gary J McCleary.
I had a good childhood as childhoods go. I didn't like school very much and yet I went on to become a high school Maths teacher. After five years of that I returned to university to finish my own full-time study in Applied Mathematics IV. After that I managed to secure a full-time Maths teaching position with TAFE NSW and I later became Head Teacher of my section. Around this time I began a part-time career as a lecturer in Engineering Studies at the University of Western Sydney.
Mathematics and Physics have always been my 'thing' as opposed to literature and the arts. It's a world where you are trained to accept nothing on 'faith' alone and to only accept that which can be rigorously proven under the strictest of Mathematical and Scientific protocols.
As a young person in good health and with the prospect of 70 to 80 years of life to look forward to the idea of life continuing on after death seemed rather foolish and unnecesary to me. I certainly had no interest in formal religion.
The groundwork for the person that I am today was always there though because I have always had a love for anything to do with science fiction including space travel and particularly time travel. I remember as a child being absolutely scared witless by a television show which had the premise that when people died they remained forever conscious in their dead and buried bodies but unable to move or communicate in any way with the outside world!
Mostly though my experiences with science fiction whether it be in books, television or the movies have been very uplifting and enlightening. Good science fiction takes the viewer to a different level of thought and puts many of our everyday experiences into a new perspective. There have for example been a number of episodes of the television show 'Star Trek' which have literally turned around some of my darker moods and encouraged me to forge different directions in life! One such notable episode was called 'The City on the Edge of Forever' which is widely regarded by many as the best ever Star Trek story.
As I said before my childhood was very good and this was largely though the efforts of my loving parents. In today's language maybe I could have been described back then as the 'Teflon kid' because nothing really bad touched me and it didn't stick long if it did.
The idea that we are all mortal and will die someday first began to sink in for me when a family member (who I was not particularly close to) died suddenly when I was about 15 years of age. It was when I turned 18 though and was part way through my university studies that the true reality and finality of death finally struck home. My beloved grandfather who I adored became ill with throat cancer (through smoking) and died leaving me and the rest of our family devastated. There was a series of commercials on TV at that time about driveway attendants who were all called 'Stanley' who would fill up your tank, check your oil and clean your windscreen all as part of the driveway service at petrol stations everywhere. For months afterwards I couldn't watch these without bursting into tears with grief over the loss of my grandfather whose name was Stanley.