AustLit

Colin Wills was a journalist, author and broadcaster. He was the youngest child of photographer and early 20th century cinematographer Frederick Charles Wills (1870-1955) and his wife Edith (nee Walker). He spent his early years at Toowoomba, where his father had a photographic studio. When he was seven years old, his family moved to Sydney, but at the age of sixteen he returned to the bush to work as a jackeroo. During this period, when he was often without company, he wrote many stories and 'quantities of verse'. In 1924 his first work, a poem, was published in Vision. In the same year he returned to Sydney, and over the next fifteen years worked as a journalist with the Daily Guardian, Smith's Weekly and the Daily Telegraph before turning to radio journalism and newsreel commentary. In 1939 he moved to England where he continued to work in radio and print journalism. During World War II he worked as a war correspondent for the BBC. He was at Normandy in June 1944 reporting on the D-Day landing, and he was at Belsen concerntration camp in 1945 soon after it was liberated by the Allies.

In addition to his Australian works, Wills wrote two books, both published in London: White Traveller in Black Africa (1951) and Who Killed Kenya? (1953).