AustLit

Born in Stanmore, Middlesex, Ian Sabey went to Brighton Grammar in England, leaving at the age of 16 because of his father's financial difficulties. He arrived in Sydney penniless as a 17- year-old. He became a journalist for the South Australian newspaper, The Advertiser, and in 1937 he was a journalist in Europe. At the time of his enlistment for World War II, he was living at Upper Sturt, in the Adelaide Hills. For some years he was a prisoner-of-war in Germany, and published a book of poems and his Stalag Scrapbook based on this experience. He was mentioned in dispatches in 1947.

From 1946 he was publicity officer for the airline T.A.A., and in 1979 wrote Challenge in the Skies: The Founding of T.A.A.

Sabey later lived in Brighton, Victoria. A rugby enthusiast, he had been instrumental in establishing rugby in South Australia in 1932, and an Ian Sabey rugby trophy has since been established.