The Truth about Charlie

Robert Coutts

For five months late in 1920 and early in 1921, Ion Idriess and George Tritton were stranded on Howick Island, a tiny inhospitable scrap of land off the coast of the Cape York Peninsula in far-north Queensland.
Idriess later became one of Australia’s most popular and most published authors. His first book, Madman’s Island, told the story of his stranding on Howick Island with George Tritton. Idriess called George ‘Charlie’. In Madman’s Island Idriess claimed George (Charlie) went mad and tried to kill him but there are two sides to every story.
This is the truth about Charlie.