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Allan Porter Skerman was born in Warwick in Queensland in 1917, taking his Christian name from his uncle, Allan Chesher Skerman who died of wounds on the Western front during the First World War in the same year, a short time after being awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. The young Allan grew up on a series of Darling Downs farms but left the country in 1937 and became a member of the Queensland Police Force, serving as a Mounted Policeman until the Second World War commenced in the Spring of 1939, when he resigned from the Force and was one of the first of a number of young men volunteering for service with the A.I.F. He became a Private in the 2/9th Australian Infantry Battalion on the day it was formed and was wounded in action during the first Western Desert Campaign. Later he served as a front line soldier with the Battalion for the full period of the Australian defence of Tobruk. Following discharge from the Forces after five years of war service he found employment as a Commonwealth public servant and occupied positions with the Repatriation Department in Brisbane, Hobart and Melbourne and finally with the Victorian Branch of Australian Archives. During his working career he treated writing as a hobby and had some short stories published but after retirement he began to write seriously. Baibi and Boangun is his third published novel.
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