About Us
Beachcomber Press was established in 2008. It is a quirky little publishing
outfit located in Tasmania. It publishes eclectic material, usually by invitation.
Hurrah for the Next Man, an anti-war, WWII memoir and Phil Davenport’s
second book, was published in 2009.
A Crack in the Ice, a debut novel by Stevie Davenport, is a crime mystery
and ode to Antarctica. It was published in 2020.
About our Authors
Phil Davenport
Phil was born in Sydney, Australia in 1918, the year that marked the start of the Spanish flu pandemic and the end of World War I.
Phil was the eldest of three brothers all of whom flew for the RAAF in Coastal Command during WWII, based in the UK. Phil’s first tour of duty was on Sunderland flying boats, his second on Mosquitos. In April 1945 Phil’s Mosquito was damaged during an attack on German shipping in Porsgrunn Harbour, Norway. Phil and navigator Ron Day crash landed in an icy lake, were rescued by Norwegian farmers and subsequently became POWs.
After the War, Phil worked in China with UNRRA until civil war brought more bullets, and UN staff were withdrawn and returned home.
Phil’s passion for sailing led him to Jock Muir and the building of 47’ cutter Waltzing Matilda. Phil, Jock and their crew campaigned the yacht in the 1949 Sydney-Hobart Race and took out line honours.
In 1950 Phil, with wife Roz, brother Keith and friend Don Brown, sailed the yacht to England via New Zealand, the Patagonian Channels, Magellan Strait and east coast of South America.
In the UK, Phil and Roz lived on the boat, in a mud berth on the Medway River, in Kent. Here, Phil wrote the story of the voyage. It was published in 1953 by Hutchinson & Co Ltd as The Voyage of ‘Waltzing Matilda’.
Phil’s working life as an airline pilot with Qantas took him travelling at a faster pace and living in different places.
Apart from two books, three daughters, and holes in many hearts, Phil’s legacy includes the re-forestation of 25 acres of grazing land in northern NSW. Bisected by a small creek, the grassy patch returned to thriving ecosystems of local rainforest trees and eucalypts, and homes for birds who visited Phil and made his heart sing. He called the property ‘By Golly Gully’.
Stevie Davenport
Stevie was one of the post-World War II fortunates, with a peaceful childhood in Sydney bushland and the woodlands of southern England; a passion for nature studies, adventure and messing about in boats.
After science studies at university, short-term jobs and travel, Stevie joined CSIRO Fisheries at Cronulla NSW in 1980 and worked on projects off the coast of mainland Australia. In 1985 a move to Hobart with CSIRO brought projects in more southern seas.
In 1989 Stevie was a sailor/runner in the inaugural Tasmanian Three Peaks Race, 13th British Three Peaks Race and sailed in the 44th Sydney Hobart Race.
In 1990 she joined the Australian Antarctic Division for the maiden scientific voyage of Aurora Australis to sub-Antarctic Heard Island. There were further scientific voyages on Aurora working on krill, fish or benthos off Antarctica or Heard Island; trips in the early 2000s to Heard Island as a scientific observer on commercial fishing boats, and a circumnavigation of Australia on a container ship to collect data for ground-truthing satellite images of sea surface temperature.
Stevie joined the Tasmanian Writers Centre in 2004 and began a journey in writing non-scientific works that tickled a different part of the brain.
The inspiration for A Crack in the Ice came while working on Aurora Australis. Gazing from the trawl deck across the icy seascape, Stevie yearned for a good fictional yarn set in Antarctica. It was a perfect place for a murder.
Contact: steviedavenport125@gmail.com