Thistle Anderson arrived in Australia as a young girl, when her father, George Anderson, who came from Glasgow to Melbourne in 1885 to be Deputy Master of the Mint. She 'entered the ballet' (Bulletin, 11 Aug. 1900), joining Nance O'Neil's touring company which J. C. Williamson brought to Adelaide in 1900 and appeared as the baroness in Fedora. Anderson travelled with the company through Australia and to New Zealand and London. In December 1901 she married (in London) Herbert Fisher, an Adelaide stockbroker. She enjoyed a social life in London and was presented at court.
Returning to Adelaide in 1903, the Fishers lived at 'Stramshall' in North Adelaide. Her book Arcadian Adelaide (1905) which she said was 'written merely as a playful skit' (preface to New Edition) infuriated Adelaide society. In mid-1905, the Fishers moved to Melbourne, and from there to San Francisco and later to London. Herbert Fisher died in 1912. The Critic's obituary reported that his widow was 'enjoying life in Paris when last heard of'.
She later remarried, and on her return to Australia in 1932 was mentioned Australian newspapers as Mrs Clavering-Sherwin. By this time, she was working as a racing journalist, with a particular focus on greyhound racing. By this point, she had been working as a professional journalist for French and English newspapers for some eight years. (See 'In Adelaide Again', Mail, 24 September 1932, p.2).
