I grew up in the Barossa Valley in the fifties. Our small country town of three thousand people had been settled by our ancestors fleeing religious persecution in Silesia and Germany in the early eighteen hundreds. Our town was strewn with churches, the countryside with vineyards.
Life was idyllic as my sister and I roamed the countryside in search of adventure. There was our beloved creek to explore, eccentric war-torn men who lived along it. Our home was a humble, happy place but, at every opportunity, the wider world was where we chose to be. Our parents loved music. Dad played the saxophone and mouth organ while Mum sang the jazz standards that I love to this day.
At sixteen I met a boy – my first true love. I was sure we would be together forever but at eighteen, I met Warren. At our second meeting he told me he believed we would spend our lives together. I stepped away from all that was comfortable and familiar to spend my life with him. After more than fifty years together there are some stories to tell.
From childhood I have had a passion for writing, and several years ago it dawned on me that if I coupled this avidity with the amazing adventure of a life we have had, there could be a book in the making. As a fairly private person, it is ironic that I have chosen to tell a ‘warts and all’ story, but that is the nature of an autobiography.
So Big The Land is the story of a farming life, what it is to live in drought and be in the grip of banks, how I’ve coped with emotional trauma and personal tragedy. It is scattered with vignettes of my free and colourful childhood. And it tells of our magnificent Australian outback adventures.