Robert Tickner

Robert Tickner is an Australian lawyer, former federal minister, and humanitarian leader whose public career included service as minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and chief executive of Australian Red Cross. Ten Doors Down is his memoir of adoption, family separation, and reunion. Scribe Publications describes Tickner's search for his birth mother and the personal consequences of discovering the circumstances around his adoption, while the State Library of New South Wales records the book among the works recognized by the National Biography Award. The title refers to the startling physical closeness between parts of his separated family history, but the narrative expands into questions about identity, secrecy, institutional practice, and belonging. Tickner connects private discovery with Australia's broader history of forced adoption while keeping individual relationships in view. Ten Doors Down consequently brings together memoir and social history, allowing Robert Tickner to examine how public systems can shape a family long after an original decision has been made.