James Audain

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James Audain (born 1903 in Bournemouth, England) was a soldier, author, and racehorse breeder/owner. Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he became a cavalry officer.

Audain eventually moved to Canada where he lived in Victoria, British Columbia on Vancouver Island for much of his life. A writer, he served as president of the Craigdarroch Castle Society and the Victoria and Islands branch of the Canadian Authors Association. He published a biography about his family called Coal Mine to Castle: The Story of the Dunsmuirs of Vancouver Island (New York: Pageant Press, 1955).

Audain continued in a somewhat revelatory mode with his book about 'problem drinkers' entitled Courage to Change The Things We Can (New York: 1960), which focuses on a group of people recovering from alcoholism in the Alcoholics Anonymous program in London during the late 1950s. Audain's My Borrowed Life (Gray's Publishing, 1962) is an autobiography dealing with his own alcoholism, supplemented with material on both the author's parents' families. He also self-published Alex Dunsmuir's Dilemma (Victoria: Sunnylane Publishing, 1964), about his great-uncle Alexander.

He was also a breeder of thoroughbred racehorses.

Audain was an unsuccessful candidate for the Social Credit Party in the 1962 Canadian federal election for the riding of Victoria.