Young

Distinguished and Famous people from Young

🏏 Nathan Lyon

Off-spinner Nathan Lyon was born at Young in 1987. His rise to Test cricket followed an unusual route: while working as a curator’s assistant at Adelaide Oval, he impressed as a net bowler and earned a chance with South Australia. Selection for Australia followed in 2011, and he took a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket against Sri Lanka. Lyon went on to become one of Australia’s leading Test wicket-takers. The early groundskeeping job gives his career a memorable change of perspective—from preparing the surface to testing what he could make the ball do on it. Young is his documented birthplace.

✍️ Roger McDonald

Writer Roger McDonald was born at Young and worked as a teacher, ABC producer and book editor before concentrating on fiction. His first novel, 1915, explored the Gallipoli generation and became an ABC television miniseries. Later books ranged across rural life, history and imaginative biography, including Mr Darwin’s Shooter and the Miles Franklin Award-winning The Ballad of Desmond Kale. He also travelled with shearers for the nonfiction book Shearers’ Motel. The varied working life matters: publishing, broadcasting, classrooms and the road all preceded or accompanied his books. His later homes were elsewhere, while Young remains the starting point recorded in his literary biography.

🎖️ Charles Anderson

Farmer, soldier and parliamentarian Charles Anderson made his Australian home at Crowther near Young. Born in South Africa, he had already received the Military Cross for First World War service before settling in the district with his family. During the fighting in Malaya in January 1942, he led his men through repeated attacks while attempting to withdraw from encirclement, actions recognised with the Victoria Cross. He then endured imprisonment for the remainder of the war. Anderson returned to his family and farm and later served in the House of Representatives. His connection to Young is a substantial part of his civilian life, on either side of extraordinary wartime service.

📻 Peter Carrodus

Peter Carrodus worked briefly at Young’s radio station 2LF during his early broadcasting career. As manager of 2CA he linked local sport, public events and music, including late-night classical sessions. He also helped strengthen the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, bringing Ernest Llewellyn into its musical leadership. Later, at Sydney’s 2MBS-FM, he organised hundreds of volunteers to maintain around-the-clock broadcasting. His regional radio experience was an early step in a career that combined a professional voice with the less audible work of keeping stations and orchestras running.