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| Source: Personal Collection. |
Yes, that's me on a horse aged three. My mother is leading the horse but I'm sitting by myself, minus shoes of course.
I grew up on a cattle station called Lornesleigh. It was part of
a much bigger holding owned by my family’s company, the Mount McConnell Pastoral
Company, that was one thousand square miles in size.
We were among the first
settlers in the north— my family had lived on that same land for nearly one
hundred years.
When I was born during a flood (but more about that another
time), we carried about ten thousand head of cattle and one hundred horses.
I
lived with three uncles and four aunts, my parents and a cousin who were spread
over four homesteads, ninety miles from the nearest town. And not a strip of
bitumen in sight. It was pot holed, dusty, rutted and, sometimes, as dry as the
proverbial dead dingo. No quick run up to the shop for a cup of sugar. Hell, no.
If we wanted to drive into town, the journey took three hours.
The road was roughly a dirt track with lots of creeks to cross and many gates
to open.
My life was far from normal, whatever that means. In what way, you
ask?
Well, I had a governess, (that was when Mum wasn’t trying to
educate me herself as well as feeding the stockmen and keeping the homestead
clean) and I didn’t go to school till I was ten.
I learned to ride a horse
almost before I learned to tie my own shoes. In fact, I never did learn how to
tie my shoelaces until much, much later.
What use were shoes except for a
horse?
I learned to shoot and Dad tried to teach me to row a boat and
drive a car when I was six. I’d have been fine, except that the boat kept going
around in circles and the car kept running off the road. He gave up teaching me
after I hit a log on my third attempt (in the car, not the boat).
There’s more to come in my next blog. Stay tuned.
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