Though Poppies Grow

After the war Vickers returned to poultry farming, and continued writing in his spare time. He initially gained a level of success with the manuscript versions of his novels The Mirage, which received a favourable commendation in the Sydney Morning Herald Literary Competition in 1946, and First Place to the Stranger, which gained equal third place in the same competition in 1948. However, due to their controversial elements, neither work attracted the interest of publishers at the time, and it was not until the eventual publication of The Mirage (1955), which was notable for its sympathetic portrayal of Aboriginal people, that he gained wider recognition as a writer. During the Cold War years, given his anti-war activism, and friendship with writers such as Katharine Susannah Prichard (q. v.)