Chris Dowding - writer

With Christmas just a few days away, it’s not long until many of us will be tucking into a large midday or evening meal, with a wine or two to set off the palette. I imagine I’m not the only person whose clothes, carpet or table cloth have been stained by red wine. How often has somebody accidentally knocked a glass over at your house? I was listening to my favourite radio station recently (I know I’m getting older because in the last year I’ve caught myself enjoying news & current affairs stations in preference to music stations). The announcer had taken her family to a public party and accidentally spilled red wine onto her daughter’s new dress. The two of them had gone to the bathroom to try and soak it up with a damp cloth.  While they were busily dabbing, an elderly Irish lady walked into the room. ‘What’r ya doin? That’s not the way to remove red wine, sure it’s not.’ She proceeded back outside, grabbed a bottle of white wine and poured it onto the stain. Apparently, the

Engineer-turned-author Chris Dowding reveals why a trip to the Emerald Isle changed him forever By Gregory Stanton, weekender magazine Chris Dowding appears uncomfortable as we sit down for a Guinness. My pint disappears quickly while he clutches his, taking small sips. Perched precariously on a bar stool, this Marcoola resident puts his unease down to his persona and his profession. “I was good at maths and not good at dealing with people,” revealing why he chose engineering as a career. “You sit in a cubicle pumping out designs and calculations. Not surprisingly, you don’t go anywhere with that attitude.” In short, it was not the most exciting or glamorous life. After marrying in 2001 though, wife Kerryn, who had a more adventurous spirit, was able to conquer his resistance and persuade Chris to move to Dublin for work. “I was disappointed with where I was going,” he says with a grimace. “I didn’t seem to be on much of a career path. I always seemed to get frustrated and come up agai

By Helen Barber, hinterliving magazine Just three months after getting married, Chris Dowding and his new wife, Kerryn started afresh by moving from the Sunshine Coast to Ireland. Both Kerryn and Ireland had a sense of spontaneity that Chris, a shy and retiring structural engineer, had previously avoided in his life. His ‘culture shock’ experience in Ireland was so unusual for him that he began writing emails home about his experiences. The result is Chris’ first travel book, ‘a few Drops short of a Pint’. It won 2007 IP Picks Best Creative Non-Fiction Award – not bad for a structural engineer turned first time author, eh? Chris shares with readers amusing and challenging anecdotes about his time in Ireland. ‘A few Drops short of a Pint’ is as much a journey of self discovery as it is a travel journal. Fittingly on St Patricks’s day, Chris launched his book with a shindig at the Noosa Regional Library in conjunction with the lovely folks from the Written Dimension Bookshop. It was a gr