Early Life
The fourth of 11 children to Donald and Grace Waters (née Bennett), Len Waters was born at Euraba Mission, near Boomi in northern New South Wales on 20 June 1924. He grew up at Nindigully, near St George, Queensland, and was educated to the seventh grade at Nindigilly State School. Hearing tales of pioneering aviators Charles Kingsford Smith, Amy Johnson, Bert Hinkler and Charles Lindbergh, and reading stories of Biggles, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers, he had, as he put it, his "head in the clouds" from an early age. Waters left school when he was 14 to support his family, working alongside his father as a ring barker. He was paid 10 shillings per week, for a seven-day week, less than one-sixth of the average wage at the time. In 1939, he began working as a shearer.
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