'Let us look at the lighter side of Islet life ... I've developed a sneaking affection for the place. The atmosphere makes for equable philosophy. There is something primitively sincere about life that makes pettiness and cynicism seem puerile and discordant. Time does not drag unduly: the days stroll smoothly across the calendar ..

'Tiny and remote, Willis Island is the only inhabited island in Australia's Coral Sea Territory. For ninety years it has maintained a weather station, and for six months in the 1920s Frank Exon, a 27-year-old engineer for Amalgamated Wireless, was stationed on the island with two companions. This is his Journal and Sketchbook — an engaging tale penned and illustrated by a natural writer and an astute observer of the natural world and of human nature, a testament to the resilience and good humour of a generation that had known the Great War.' (Publisher's blurb)