Speaking exclusively to The Redland Times before the luncheon, Ray told of a harsh childhood growing up in the Australian bush. His early years were shadowed by constant moving and upheaval as his tradesman father found work around the country and Ray and his mother and three sisters moved with him.

"It was like living in a family of Bedouins," he said . "We moved to 13 different places in three different states before I settled into Launceston High School."

The family travelled on trains from town to town, suffered poverty and lived in what shelter they could find.

His father's drinking bouts, which culminated in domestic violence, also cast dark shadows.

Fearing for their safety, Ray's mother fled one day with the children and Ray would never see his father again.

"He effectively died when I was 11," he said.

Ray wrote in his autobiography that the possibility of success such as he's known never crossed his mind when he was young.

"For me as a kid, the idea of sitting in a TV studio wearing make-up and talking to royalty or to a screen legend like Audrey Hepburn was white-fella dreamtime stuff," he wrote.

"Not even in the glossy pages of her Australian Women's Weekly bible could my mother have imagined such an alluring future for her son."

However, 18 years later, Ray was living in New York and working as the ABC's North America correspondent; a role he held for almost 10 years.

He has also reported for 60 Minutes and hosted several shows, including A Current Affair, Midday, Our Century and The Ray Martin Show.

Ray said he attributed his success in part to his mother.

"I never went hungry and I was never short of love with three sisters who treated me like a little prince and a mother who believed I could do no wrong," he said.

"If you have a person like that in your life you really have a chance."

Ray: Stories of My Life (William Heinemann RRP $49.95) takes readers on a journey through the life and career of one of Australia's most prominent journalists.

Read more about Ray Martin in the next issue of Senior Lifestyle Bayside - out next week.