Being raised by parents who had an interest in natural history gave me a sound background for my future passion for bats. In the early 1960s there was a small core of bat researchers in Australia and these people were responsible for fostering my desire to study bats. From the mid 1970's the stimulus of other researchers and postgraduate students at the University of Queensland further deepened my interest in bats. As study animal, bats are both challenging and rewarding. We have still so much to learn about Australian bats and bats need all the help and positive publicity we can give them.