Les Murray was born in Nabiac on the North Coast of New South Wales and grew up in the neighbouring district of Bunyah. He attended primary and early high school in Nabiac and then attended Taree High School. At age 18, while watching mayflies along the river, he decided he would become a poet. In 1957 he began study at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Arts and joined the Royal Australian Navy Reserve to obtain a small income. Speaking about this time to Clive James he has said: "I was as soft-headed as you could imagine. I was actually hanging on to childhood because I hadn't had much teenage. My Mum died and my father collapsed. I had to look after him. So I was off the chain at last, I was in Sydney and I didn't quite know how to do adulthood or teenage. I was being coltish and foolish and childlike. I received the least distinguished degree Sydney ever issued. I don't think anyone's ever matched it." In 1961 "The Bulletin" published one of his poems. He developed an interest in ancient and modern languages, which qualified him to become a professional translator at the Australian National University (where he was employed from 1963 to 1967). During his studies he met other poets and writers such as Geoffrey Lehmann, Bob Ellis, Clive James and Lex Banning as well as future political journalists Laurie Oakes and Mungo McCallum Jr. Between times, he hitch-hiked around Australia and lived for several months at a Sydney Push household at Milsons Point, where he was introduced to Virgil's "Eclogues" by his poetically inclined host, Brian Jenkins. He returned to undergraduate studies in the 1960s and became a Roman Catholic when he married Budapest-born fellow-student Valerie Morelli in 1962. They lived in Wales and Scotland and travelled in Europe for over a year in the late 1960s. They had five children together.