This is a rollicking tale of the highs and lows of a life well lived. Born into a life of privilege, James Wilson was always too free-thinking to be kept down on the farm, content to follow in his ancestors' footsteps. Slowly but determinedly he pulled away from tradition and set off on his own sometimes rocky and precarious path. Ten years at elite boarding schools didn't snuff out his dreams of adventure, which subsequently found him travelling across the Sahara desert and down the length of Africa in a little Mini, and later upifting his wife and four children to work as a farm advisor on a cattle farm in Malaysia. Back home again, he turned the farming over to his long-suffering wife Barbie and embarked on a career as an inventor and entrepreneur, with some successful - and occasionally disastrous - results. Eventually the family farm was sold and Barbie and James have carved out a new active life in the Marlborough Sounds. James's ride through life has been a rollercoaster, but he has few regrets and the proverbial silver spoon is now but a faint memory.