Granville Crawford's country was a corner of south-eastern New South Wales. It ran 100 km from east to west, from Michelago to the Murrumbidgee headwaters near Coolamon, and north-south from Yaouk to Tharwa. After a residence of fifty-seven years Granville Crawford knew that land as well as the average bloke knows his backyard. Yet his deep attachment to this land was shared by others. The Ngunnawal Aboriginal people, bushwalkers and environmentalists knew and loved the same valleys and ranges. Now this land is not only emotionally loved but emotionally contested.

Granville Crawford knew his country almost from birth. He was born in Queanbeyan, near Canberra, in 1929; his father died in an accident just before he was born and he was reared at Naas, a tiny settlement in the foothills of the Brindabella ranges. His foster parents were his grandmother Bertha Dyball, who won the contract to bring mail to the remote stations in the hills above Tharwa, and his stepgrandfather Herbert Oldfield, a high-country sheep and cattle farmer.

In a world where the sexes lived their lives more separately than today, the old bushman had the greatest influence on the boy. Herbert Oldfield showed Granville Crawford his own special places: That's where Hi [I] used to turn the cattle, a sparkle in his eyes. Once Oldfield gave him the last of the tucker because a young feller like Granville needed it more than an old feller like him.