Take My Advice, I'm Not Using It - Rod Halsted

'I caught a bus to my first drug deal. At the time, I lived in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Newtown, where you could leave your front door open without fear of being burgled-but only because so many of Sydney's criminals lived in the area. It was the early seventies and I travelled by bus to the upmarket harbourside suburb of Abbotsford because I didn't own a car and didn't have enough money for a cab.

My last deal ended abruptly in 1981 in a country town with a police pistol to my head after I had collected five kilos of the best grass ever grown in Australia. Well, that's what the courts said, anyway.'

Rod Halsted is the classic irrepressible Aussie larrikin. As soon as he could leave school, he headed straight to Kalgoorlie for adventure. Not that he needed to cross the country: adventure always finds Rod, and he loves to take a risk.

Rod drank with Bob Hawke, did business with drug tsars, was rescued from the nick by Charles Waterstreet, hung with one of the Great Train Robbers, and wrote off endless cars. Then it all caught up with him. He has long since abandoned the drugs and conquered his alcohol addiction.

This is his laugh-out-loud story.