The Guardian | A Ferguson
Tim Winton (above) knows what it’s like to be the first in a family to go to university – “what a breakthrough that is, the kind of opportunities it provides”. It was at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, studying arts, that he wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer, launching a four-decade writing career. This was the 1980s, after a Labor government had temporarily made higher education free for all Australians.