People like James Vance Marshall

Donald Gordon Payne (3 January 1924 – 22 August 2018) was an English author, most famous for his 1959 novel, Walkabout. Payne was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1962.

Donald Gordon Payne was born in Denmark Hill in southeast London. His father, Francis Payne, was from New Zealand and had served with the ANZACs in World War I, and his mother was Evelyn Rodgers, who had served as a nurse in World War I. As a child he travelled with his parents to New Zealand and Australia. He went to school at Dulwich College Preparatory, and then to Charterhouse School.

Payne enlisted in 1943 and served with the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot flying Fairey Swordfish during World War II, escorting convoys across the Atlantic and to Russia.