Please join us for an French inspired chat with author Gerry Collins at our Port Macquarie Library on Tuesday 21st January at 5.30pm.

Gerry Collins grew up in Raymond Terrace, where he went to primary school before going to secondary school in Newcastle and then graduated from Newcastle Teachers College. For ten years he taught in primary and secondary schools in Western New South Wales before making a major switch in occupation, becoming Sports Editor and then Editor of the Daily Liberal newspaper in Dubbo. In 1984 he obtained his dream job as a Sports Broadcaster for ABC Radio and Television. With the ABC he got to see the world covering major international sporting events such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Swimming championships and Rugby World Cups. In those roles he called every Olympic Gold Medal won by sporting stars such as Kieren Perkins, Susie O’Neill and Stephanie Rice. He also called the Australian Wallabies’ winning of the Rugby World Cup in Wales in 1999.

The last thing he was expecting was to have an amazing experience in retirement. Already a French student, he had returned to study at the University of Newcastle, where he was able to complete a Diploma in Languages course. It didn’t enter his mind that he might become an international university exchange student – but he did. So started an extraordinary experience studying at the University of La Rochelle, an idyllic city on France’s Atlantic coast. That experience was so amazing he felt that he had to write a book about it. Hence A Fortuitous Foray into France was born, taking the reader on a wonderful journey with Gerry as he battles the challenges of being an exchange student in a foreign country, speaking and writing in a foreign language and enjoying a student social life.