Dad gave up farming before I was born, but back in the ’30s this was the family farm. I think my great-granddad built it. He was a joiner/builder by trade. You can’t always trust my Dad’s memory — well, you can trust it to be wrong, but on the off chance he’s right — the walls of the farmhouse were lined with burlap sacks to act as insulation in the long hot summers. Can you imagine what that must have been like, hearing them rustle with the movement of wind through the sheets of tin, and even worse, rustle with the scurry of mice and the slither of snakes.

One of the joys of Carina Press contracting to publish Wanted: One Scoundrel has been the impetus it’s given me to dig out the family photos and even delve into some of the history. It’s amazing what you can find when you start looking. Who’d have guessed Dad’s side of the family has been here over 170 years? That’s a snip of time compared to Indigenous families, but not so bad for us newcomers 🙂 It means there are some interesting stories floating around…

I do not believe my great uncle’s claim that it was his dad who introduced kookaburras to Western Australia from the east coast, but it does seem in character that my family would believe a loud, laughing bird would be a good thing to bring along on their journey 😀