An Awesome Ride: Through a Father's Eyes

by Cameron Miller, Andrew Clarke

Overview

An Awesome Ride is the true and inspirational story of Shaun Miller as told by his father, Cameron.

'Hi guys. I have some bad news I want to tell you all.' So said seventeen-year-old Shaun Miller on YouTube in May 2012, shortly after receiving a devastating diagnosis about his heart condition. The clip has now been viewed millions of times.

In 1994, when Cameron Miller found out he was going to be a father, he hoped his boy would have an easier childhood than he'd had. Cameron had been in and out of hospital with chronic asthma and been relentlessly bullied. As it turned out, that had been the easy part. Life was about to get a lot tougher.

Before he was two weeks old, Cameron's son, Shaun, had his first operation. Suffering from Congenital Heart Disease (CHD), he had his second heart transplant when he was thirteen. Ultimately, he endured about 1000 medical procedures.

Through it all, Shaun maintained an incredibly positive outlook, inspiring children and adults alike. In his final days, he fulfilled his dream of making a cameo appearance on Neighbours and appeared on the AFL Footy Show, exchanging banter with his heroes.

Tragically, Shaun passed away only a few weeks after he'd posted his video, and his father struggled to cope. Suffering from crippling grief, Cameron attempted suicide and spent time in a psychiatric institution.

An Awesome Ride, however, is a story of hope. Only after reaching rock bottom did Cameron come to understand Shaun's message. Today, with the establishment of the Shaun Miller Foundation - he is the founder and CEO - Cameron is a warrior for all children with CHD and their families, just as he had been for his son.

Through his father, and through this book, Shaun's unbreakable spirit lives on.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940165830747
Publisher:	Cameron Miller
Publication date:	10/30/2021
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	429 KB

About the Author

Cameron Miller is the founder of the Shaun Miller Foundation and has had a long-time involvement in the Australian film industry. He is perhaps best known as the father of Shaun Miller, a remarkable boy who lived a full life with Congenital Heart Disorders and penned the original manuscript for An Awesome Ride.

An Awesome Ride: Through A Father's Eyes is an extension of that story and is Cameron's first book.

He studied at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) and was mentored by icon Actor Charles 'Bud' Tingwell OAM and legendary film icon Alan Finney OAM.

Cameron completed an intense course in filmmaking with LA Producer and film teacher Dov Simens who launched the careers of Quentin Tarantino, Chris Nolan, Spike Lee, Guy Richie and many others.

He has produced three Australian films Yesterday's Hero - Groomless Bride and Everybody Hurts. Through his business The Verdict Film Group, he also distributes movies globally.

Andrew Clarke is a Melbourne, Australia, based marketing expert, journalist and book author. He has written more than 20 books and has contributed articles to a range of magazines and publications on topics as widespread as business and plumbing to all forms of sport. He is a capable and entertaining public speaker.

In business, he is a marketing manager and advisor to several businesses, including professional services firms in law, accounting and insolvency, as well as a business in other areas such as financial planning and medicinal psychedelics.

Andrew has presented to various bar associations in China, conferences and law firms in China on doing business in Australia. Andrew is also pursuing a number of business opportunities for himself and others in China.

From very early in Andrew’s working life with the short-lived reincarnation for Footy Week, he was involved with ghostwriting columns for football identities such as Leigh Matthews, Warwick Capper and Robert DiPierodomenico, as well other stories and profiles pieces on the people involved in the football world.

From there his love of motorsport and then business was to draw him away from AFL, and the VACC and then Chevron Publishing allowed him to play in the sandpit that had been his childhood. In his adult life, Matchbox cars, Tonka toys and his own carefully crafted race tracks – in the sandpit – turned into stories on real cars and racing car drivers and that became all-consuming, along with work marketing law firms which could be the strangest work combination in history.

In 2008 the chance came up to work with Australian motor racing legend Mark Skaife on two books, one a picture-based biography and the second a full autobiography with Random House (now Penguin Random House). Spending six months getting into Skaifey’s head was the perfect job for Andrew, and that evolved into the same tasks with people like F1 World Champion Alan Jones, AFL footballer Matthew Lloyd, racing driver Greg Murphy, Olympic Gold medallist Lydia Lassila and now with Cameron Miller who has a very different and non-sporting story to tell.

In all, Andrew has written more than 20 books, mostly on car racing, and will continue that theme this year with books on the Indy 500 and the Bathurst 1000 among his writing projects. He also works on radio as an expert reporter on motorsport and presents on the history of Australian football and talks about his involvement as a coach with the Pakistan Shaheens in the AFL International Cup.

Andrew is the father of two active children who push the sporting and artistic boundaries through various levels of football, dancing and music (did we mention Andrew also managed bands at one stage and wrote music stories?) and is enjoying the prospect of one day scaling back and doing the ‘big’ project.