IT’S hard to know where to start with Charles Hardman – after all, his life story contains plenty of twists and turns in a lot of unrelated fields.

The Narrawong resident has scaled some high peaks of the corporate world, felt the lows of rejection in the arts, bounced back to ensure others don’t have that same experience, and taken matters into his own hands as far as his own creative urges are concerned.

And now he has some intriguing ideas to help Portland and district make the most of its potential without sacrificing its identity.

But first, let’s go back to the beginning.

Bulldogs, Bombers and “all the cool places”

Born and raised in Footscray, of Anglo-Indian descent (he counts Portuguese, Dutch, English, Scottish and Burmese heritage in among his background), Mr Hardman lived in adjacent Seddon before moving to Narrawong permanently seven years ago.

Though the 46-year-old has never barracked for the Bulldogs.

“I went to school in Essendon (St Bernard’s College) with Brad and Matthew Lloyd and the Maddens (Justin and Simon) were there before me,” he said.

“Once you go to St Bernard’s you have no option, you’re a Bombers supporter.”

Not that football was where he excelled.

“Towards the end of High School I really thought I’d like to be an artist,” Mr Hardman said.

“I enjoyed painting, drawing, etching, printmaking, all that sort of stuff.

“But at the same time I was studying chemistry, biology and physics and doing art.”

Pretty well too – he graduated as dux, but still wanted to make it as an artist.

However, he was soon confronted with a Catch-22 situation.

“I went to lots of galleries in Flinders Lane and asked ‘how do you become an artist?’,” he said.

“They all gave me the same response.”

Basically that was that he had to have exhibited before, won awards, and had a good average selling price among other things.

“That was great, but how do you get there,” Mr Hardman said.

“It all became too hard.”

However, those questions and possible answers were filed away for another day. More on that later.

In the meantime he was accepted into Melbourne University where he ended up studying psychology and criminology.

It led into a career as an organisational psychologist, specialising in training and carving out a career in customer service and sales.

That was with the ASX-listed Computershare, a company anyone who owns shares in public companies will have an association with as it provides registration and transfer services for those shares.

“I got into senior management in operations and eventually ended up managing all of our back office (such as) call centres and letter writers, it was a team of 300,” Mr Hardman said.

“My approach to that sort of stuff was to do it properly and we won awards, we became Australia’s best communication centre as judged by an independent association, we were voted best of the best, both state and nationally.

“What that did was open up a door to take it international, if we could be the best here.”

Mr Hardman was asked to go to Bristol in the UK to do just that for Computershare.

“I kept saying no,” he said.

“I loved Melbourne, I’m not a grass is greener type of person, I’m happier with the grass that I’ve got.

“But eventually I said yes, and I loved it.”

He spent three years in Bristol, travelling throughout Europe while there.

“A year in, my job changed and I became global change programs manager which basically meant I became the lead for all of our call centres all around the world to make them consistent,” he said.

“It took me to all the cool places.”

He travelled extensively through North America, the likes of New York, Chicago and Toronto, as well as coming back to Melbourne regularly.

“Computershare gave me all of that, it was really great fun and eye-opening,” Mr Hardman said.

“At the end of that contract I got asked to come back to Australia as the head of HR for around 2000 people in Australia and the global lead for 10,000 around the world.

“I did that for two years then thought I’d had enough in (the corporate world) and I wanted to do something back in the arts.”

The beginning of scratching urges

Still thinking about how hard it was to get started all those years previously, Mr Hardman decided to open a gallery for “emerging and aspiring” artists “where I’d never ask the questions I got asked at 18”.

The gallery, named one hundredth, has been going for 11 years – its target is any artist starting out, regardless of age and since beginning it has helped more than 100 artists.

Despite being affected by the coronavirus pandemic, when the physical gallery (based in Prahran and then South Melbourne) had to close, it still exists online.

While starting the gallery, a not-for-profit enterprise in which he rents space to artists and they get to keep whatever they make, he has also started various consulting businesses.

But how did he make the gallery work?

“I have no education in art, no knowledge, no expertise, no anything in that sector but what I did have was my business experience in processes, marketing and promotion,” Mr Hardman said.

“And that’s what a lot of artists lack. I was almost like a business consultant to the artists.”

Before he started he went to an art fair and found it cost at least $5000 for a nine square metre space for artists to spruik their wares.

“I spoke to as many artists as I could and said ‘I’m not going to charge anywhere near that and you can have a whole space to yourself and not just a booth’.

“Word of mouth got out and people sought me out. It was just blood, sweat and tears to kick it off.”

Mr Hardman said he always asked artists why they wanted to exhibit so he could do his bit to meet their objectives.

“If an artist said ‘I want to make $10,000 out of this exhibition’ I’d encourage them to go elsewhere because that’s not guaranteed,” he said.

“It’s (the gallery) a social enterprise where I wanted to break even, my money for living came from out of my other enterprises.”

And in a neat twist, artists exhibiting there have been able to go on to other “traditional” galleries and be able to answer the questions Mr Hardman couldn’t as an 18-year-old.

Time for paradise

At the same time as he started the gallery in 2010, came the decision to move out of Seddon.

So why Narrawong?

“Hand in hand with quitting the corporate world I wanted to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life and have somewhere else to go,” Mr Hardman said.

“At the time a friend and I had a house on Philip Island, but that was just suburbia.

“I knew what I wanted was the complete opposite of that, the opposite of Melbourne, which is what I found here, by accident.”

His method for choosing Narrawong was unorthodox, to say the least.

He looked at a map of the state on a popular real estate website and looked at where the red dots were signifying property for sale “in the middle of nowhere”.

Narrawong fitted the bill, but it was far from easy to move after buying a block of land.

“The first four years I was also battling with the council to get a house built (which made the front page of the Observer at the time), but it all worked out in the end,” Mr Hardman said.

“Back then I could walk along the beach here and never see another soul, there was just no-one here.

“I don’t know why that was, or whether it was just incredible coincidences. Now I’ll see two people in the morning and evening and think ‘this place is crowded’. Summer holidays are a whole different thing altogether.

“But I think it’s great, people have found that same space and serenity and enjoy it.”

Back to business

About a year ago, there was another twist to Mr Hardman’s story.

“I ran into Doreen and Gavin (Symes) on the beach and we’ve been mates since,” he said.

“One day Doreen was talking about this work which she was doing for Promoting Portland, because she’s the membership person, but it then took a little while for us to discuss what Promoting Portland did and why it was there.

“It took a little longer for me to put the pieces to the puzzle together in my head and see what I could contribute.

“What can I give back to Narrawong, because I’ve got a lot out of Narrawong.”

The reason for that goes back a little further.

“When I finished in the workforce I wanted to do a lot more with not-for-profits, charities and things like that,” Mr Hardman said.

“I signed up for a soup kitchen in Williamstown and did my training which was two to three hours.

“What I realised was by my being there I was doing more damage than good, I was taking a position away from someone who actually needed it because they needed ‘volunteer’ ticked off for Centrelink or somewhere.

“That was my first and only shift there and I realised to have the best outcome (in the sector) I really should use my experience.”

Mr Hardman did exactly that – he has now been on the board of Carers Victoria and Footscray Community Arts for several years and was intrigued by Promoting Portland’s mission (to get people to come to the region).

And it is clear he has put plenty of thought into what he is about to do.

Mr Hardman is not a fan of towns that have boomed along the Great Ocean Road and other places, which he feels have lost the charm that attracted people to them in the first place as they became swamped by new residents and tourists.

“Through Doreen I thought this might be a really good way to donate expertise to the business community, but I also genuinely believe in the area, it has so much to offer,” he said.

“But at the same time I don’t want it to be overrun.

“In places like Portland there’s a real danger it will lose itself very, very quickly through an influx of what you might call ‘aliens’ for want of a better term.

“If for example 50 per cent of the residents of Port Fairy moved to Portland, it’s no longer Portland.

“They will bring their own way of doing things. The reason they came here wasn’t for their own way of doing things, it was for what Portland has to offer.

“Their presence changes the culture and they start doing things their way.

“We’ve already seen in Portland property prices double in 12 months, there’s so much happening.

“My fear is if Portland can’t grasp its identity and hold on to it and promote and bolster it, it has the potential of being lost.”

And the idea is to grasp that identity by promoting the highest standards of service.

He gives an example, call it far-fetched if you like but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility, of what can happen with bad service in a regional area.

“If that happens to me I might do one of two things,” he said.

“I’m never going back to that business and I’m going to tell people that, or I’m going to open a competing business that might run that one out of business.

“That’s by servicing the new market of these people who are moving here. And in the not-too-distant future, the next 5-10 years, we’re going to have all these businesses here run by people who are not from here and are going to do things their way.

“I’m a systems guy, I’m looking at things before they happen and if you can develop a Portland identity, a persona, or something people can buy in to and be happy with, then it won’t happen and Portland can remain Portland and be itself.”

Mr Hardman is going to run a type of group mentoring for Promoting Portland members (and others, though it will be free for the former) starting in February – quarterly two-hour ‘think tank’ discussions on topics to support members on the mission to promote Portland.

“It’s all about what we could do rather than what you should do,” Mr Hardman told a gathering recently.

And those solutions might not be complicated.

“If we could get everyone in Portland who’s in service to make eye contact and smile that would be a huge win,” he said.

“People in customer service respond better to people that they know and if they can acknowledge that they can do something about it. But it’s not that simple.”

Another urge scratched

But it’s not just about the art of business – Mr Hardman hasn’t neglected that long-held desire to satisfy his artistic urges – though the method he’s done it by isn’t what he envisaged back then.

“I always thought it would be by painting or drawing but I’ve always had the intention to write a book,” he said.

“I always thought the book would be a business book.”

That was until March 2020, when the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown began, and everything changed.

“I was here and I thought the universe has given me a gift,” Mr Hardman said.

“It’s given me time. It’s dried all my consulting work up because I prefer that face-to-face.

“So I had a decision – either to write that business book or really try to do something different outside my comfort zone.”

The latter won, and The Opposite of a Psychopath is the result.

It is a novel, and its journey to publication (under the nom-de-plume Charles Tyler) is a story in itself.

Part one of what he hopes will be a trilogy, it is the story of a man trying to hold himself together after his long-term relationship falls apart.

“I sat down on March 31 (2020) and I finished writing on April 30, it took me a month,” Mr Hardman said.

“It was 80,000 words done in 30 days. It all worked and came together.”

Except that it didn’t.

“Now 150 re-writes and 17 months later that’s when it was done,” he said.

He went through a complete re-write, hired a couple of “structural editors” to give him some advice, took about a month to make sense of what they’d told him “and the only thing to do was to kill it and start again”.

And that’s now what has been published. But true to form, even that wasn’t easy.

“It’s an incredibly insular industry,” Mr Hardman said.

“If you are not an author, no-one wants to talk to you, and there are all these professions I didn’t know existed.

“One of those is the literary agent. You have to go through them rather than directly to a publisher, but that’s provided a literary agent will take you on as a client.

“The industry is actually becoming even more insular with fewer and fewer authors being published and who are making it bigger and bigger because once you’re in, you’re in.”

So Mr Hardman decided to self-publish the novel – hard copies can be bought at the Narrawong Post Office and a bookstore in Seddon, or ordered through other booksellers, as well as through online sites such as Amazon.

“I didn’t even bother with a literary agent, I thought the easiest way to get from A to B is to do everything yourself,” he said.

“When I started on the book it was going to be wholly and solely for me, I thought it was going to be published but was never going to be read by anyone else.

“It was the opposite of ego, but as I went through the process and my partner started to read it, she said ‘there’s something in this, you shouldn’t hide it away’.