AustLit

Harry Tighe, the son of state politician Atkinson Tighe, grew up in Petersham. Sent to England at seventeen due to his poor health, he enrolled at Cambridge University and his health significantly improved. Despite becoming healthy in the English climate, Tighe continued to identify himself as Australian, struggling with the conflict between his physical comfort and his affection for his homeland. At twenty-one he became a full-time writer. By the early 1930s he had written sixteen novels and had four plays produced in London.