About Gerry Dubbin

Gerry Dubbin spent the first eighteen years of his life in Harehills, a working-class suburb of Leeds, principal city of Yorkshire in the north of England. As a boy, he aspired to becoming a writer, a profession that circumstances put out of his reach. Instead, he entered the apparel manufacturing industry as a learner tailor. He studied apparel and textile design at the Leeds College of Technology, emerging with the highest national qualifications, including the prestigious English Silver Medal. Following two years of compulsory national service in the RAF, and seeing few future prospects in austerity-bound post-war Britain, he decided to migrate to Australia in 1959. Following a number of years working as apparel designer in Melbourne, during which he was responsible for establishing Australia's first apparel-industry school of technology at the Melbourne College of Textiles, he joined the Australian Wool Board-later the Australian Wool Corporation-and was eventually appointed as the corporation's international marketing director, based in New York. Since returning to Australia in the late 1970s, he has held senior management positions in the apparel, textiles and timber industries. He later went on to establish a successful signage and architectural lighting company. Following a bitter but successfully fought dispute with a prominent Melbourne real-estate company at the Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal, he was appointed as an independent consumer advocate in the real-estate field, a role that resulted in his first book, Smoke & Mirrors, Egos & Illusions: The World of Real Estate. Ultimately, he decided that it was time to step away from the executive jungle, and rekindle his boyhood desire to become a published writer. Why Should I Learn to Speak Italian? is his fourth book. He currently resides in Hastings, a small town located on the Mornington Peninsula's eastern shore, 60km south east of Melbourne.