This is me and my Nan, an Irish born woman, she bore eleven children raising ten. Her life was tough, she made the very hard choice to leave her marriage before the era of family benefits and raised the last of her brood working two jobs in tough conditions.
I was born in Fremantle, but city born does not always mean city bred. Until a few years ago I had spent all my life, in the country. My father's employment meant we had several moves. I started my school career at a very large school, after only being there for a short while we moved. Then I was going to a two room school, not many around today. At this school, we had a shortage of boys and girls, especially on sports day. This day was always a lot of fun, one week we played cricket and the next we played netball, I can remember kicking the odd goal in an Aussie rules match, it was great fun.
Then we moved again, a slightly larger town with a three room school. Here, things were a little more even so sport and games were not as much fun, and my promising football career went by the boards. All the girls had to play netball and girlie games. Isn’t it funny at age 11, and 12 how the sexes are kept separate.
After primary school it was off to high school, this was about a 40 minute drive away by bus, this in itself was a great adventure. Of course with me went all my old friends, we had plenty of fun, it was a case of making our own. We had dances and discos in the local R.S.L hall, this cost us 50 cents to hire. As we got older it was a 40 kilometer drive to the nearest large town and its drive in, what a great place the country is to grow up in.