Thomas Keneally set to be a special guest at the All Saints Catholic Church centenary celebrations in Kempsey

Mr Keneally is well known for his iconic novels such as Schindler's Ark, A River Town, and Corporal Hitler's Pistol.

His books often return to Kempsey and the surrounding regions which may be because of Mr Keneally's personal connection with the area.

Both of his parent's family settled in the town and it was his maternal grandfather Michael 'Mick' Coyle who assisted in building of the grotto at the Church.

"My mother wanted me named after her father and my father must have had a few drinks before going to the registry office and registering me as Thomas Michael", he laughed.

"But my mother valiantly called me Michael all the way through my childhood in honor of her old man."

Affectionately called 'Old Mick', Mr Keneally recounts his grandfather's stories from the Great Depression when travelling men roamed from town to town.

Described as a passionate union man who rooted for the underdog, it wasn't uncommon for Old Mick to slow down the train for travelers to jump on or off the train undetected.

But in the times of the Great Depression, Old Mick witnessed his own fair share of tragedy.

On Saturday May 10 1930 Mick's youngest daughter was struck down by a motor car while playing on the street with her older sister, Marie Patricia Coyle and friend Joyce Clinch.

Mick last saw his daughter the following night at the Macleay District Hospital where she lay unconscious.

She passed away in the early hours of Monday morning (May 12, 1930). She was seven years old.

Rather than lean on drinking in his time of grief, Mick turned to God by advocating for and later partaking in the construction of the Lourdes Grotto for the All Saints Catholic Church.

He also took up the tradition of the Christmas creche, building it outside of the Church as a tribute to his daughter.

This wasn't the only untimely death to impact Mick.

Mr Keneally recounts Old Mick's story of a travelling man who while travelling facing backwards on the top of a carriage, was knocked off the train by a no-overhead barrier and died.

Train guards took his body back to Kempsey but it was old Mick who got him a St Vincent de Paul suit for his burial.

"This poor sod was victim of a time of great crisis," Mr Keneally said.

"Now half the people, the parishioners of the Church and every church and non-church goers in Kempsey are suffering a terrible time again."

Like most of Australia, Kempsey is living with the potential threat of a global recession.

The ongoing rental crisis in the area has also caused many a resident to worry.

It's hard not to draw comparisons to a time that Mr Keneally remembers the impacts of well.

"The quality of mercy was constricted in the early 1930s," he said.

"And that's why we had such a bad depression. My parents were very marked by the depression. They'd never take a back loan, they'd never buy anything on credit and they paid their bills as soon as they came in.

"It's only the privileged that don't pay their bills as soon as they come in."

The stories of the past told to Mr Keneally by his father and grandfather paint a picture of the town in the wake of World War I.

Mr Keneally recalls tales of young ANZACS whisked away to the frontlines with the promise of travel only to meet their untimely demise to old diggers drinking together in solidarity, unable to speak about the horrors they witnessed.

"I find, as all people do, the streets of Kempsey full of very vivid ghosts.

"Old Mick told me he had a fireman who had in a tucker box some cloth package. He unwrapped it for Mick one day and it was a pistol."

The fireman had planned to use the gun on his wife and daughter should the feared Japanese military invasion ever occur.

"That's how scared people were and people were terrified.

"There's always been a lot close to the bone up there on the North Coast."

As an Irish Catholic, it wasn't unusual for Mick to face unfair judgement.

Prejudice against both Catholics and the Irish were far too common especially after the attempted assassination attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Albert in 1868.

"We were the lowest clan of the white crowd in Australia and that continued until we were displaced by new arriving immigrants," Mr Keneally said.

"Suddenly we went upstate."

Mr Keneally agreed that it was at the Church where everyone could feel equal in a sense.

"I'm the last left to speak for Old Mick and I want to do him honor and do the Church honor because amongst other things it was a place where you could go in the past and be a fully paid up citizen.

"No one was doubting you were a citizen."

Mr Keneally was invited as a special guest to the All Saints Catholic Church by parish priest Father James Foster.

"He has the bishop this weekend," Mr Keneally said.

"Now that'll be a test. He doesn't know if the mad novelist is gonna go on about women priests or not!"

Mr Keneally will be in attendance at the Church's centenary celebrations this Sunday (July, 17) where the Lourdes Grotto will be blessed.

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