Life is a journey, not a destination. I don't know who said that, but what I do know is the truth of it. Sixty one years into this journey provides a lot of things to look back on, to be grateful for and to celebrate.
As the unfolding story is being committed to paper there are other stories (Like Ben Whites) that need to be told.
Life is a tapestry and it's when we take time to reflect on it's elements that it's beauty is revealed. To say that life is three score years and ten is a fallacy. Through association with family members born in the late 1800's and with those born in the early twenty first Century it's possible to form a picture (movies are better) of what the experience of former generations were and what can lay ahead for the young ones of today.
Much of the impressions of the earlier generations were gleaned form oral history. Not in any formal way but simply from the telling of their experiences.
On on memorable occasion sitting alongside my great grandfather on the cool verandah I heard the whistle of a steam locomotive. When asked Grandfather White began a story that was full of the richness of his knowledge and lifes experiences.
As a young man he had worked on the construction of that very rail road, become a part of the community, been a part of the team who built the local Church, married the pretty red headed eldest daughter of a neighbouring family and together they had carved a farm out of the bush, raised six children and gone on to be recognised as examples and ambassadors for the district.
So picture an impressionable six year old sitting next to this ninety one year old gentleman and soaking up the aura of who he was. Fifty years later there was a sense of deja vu as I sat with my stepfather who was also ninety one.
That's the mens side of things. The stories that came from great grandma White (as she was known to to the local population.) which enthralled we youngsters. Of course there was Nanna Rose who made her home a second home to us all after Dad died. Nanna lived an extraordinary life, carving a farm out of the bushland, do what was necessary to help the farm survive during the depression and continued to run it after Grandfather Rose suffered tuberculosis and couldn't work the farm any more.
The tales that she told of going miles through the bush to the school and being responsible for her younger brothers, stories of the horse not being properly tethered and having to walk home, of mischievous younger brothers and the antics they got up to in their teens and early twenties.
Most important in the oral history was Mum, their only daughter who grew up in a generation that had time. There might not have been a great deal of money, but there was always time to spend "having a yarn.'
So today as I turn sixty one it becomes more important to me to document each of these 'yarns' and create a living history. One that can be passed on to succeeding generations. With four beautiful grandchildren who love to hear of the 'olden days' it's even more incentive.
Like my Dad and great uncle Ben I guess that's why I became a writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment