How one conversation took me back many decades...

I was sitting poolside watching the young master and his weekly training squad when (a relatively new friend, our boys play in the same team) and I started chatting. She is a recent inhabitant of our shores, but our family background is very similar, in that I too am an immigrant from the European continent and we love all things marzipan. We discussed her new home, the children and then we started talking about books. What you like, what motivates, what moves you? And as an avid reader, I suggested we swap books as a means of spreading good storytelling. She asked me what was my favourite book? A few titles popped into my subconscious, but one especially is the above mentioned. The Land Before Avocado, by Richard Glover.

And of course, this sent me down a rabbit hole, back to the late 70s in Australia, when we would roller skate in the shopping centre carpark on a Saturday afternoon when all shops shut at midday. Or when you would see dozens of kids under the age of ten scramble home, sometimes racing through suburbs just to get in the door by the time the streetlights were fully alight. (There was a five-minute grace period, but any later and watch out!) Or when (and in most cases us kids from non-english speaking families) we would unwrap our freshly cooked chicken schnitzel roll complete with cabbage and mayonnaise – from a clean tea towel to place on your knees so you wouldn’t dirty your school uniform - which was handed to you through the gate by your grandmother who walked to the primary school to deliver your lunch. Trust me, there was no comparison to the squashed cheese and vegemite sandwiches most of the Australian students had to endure. Stereotypical I know.

Why is it that those memories are still fresh, yet anything that happened in the 90s is much of a blur? Caught up in life I suppose. I still remember the neighbourhood kids. We didn’t all attend the same school, but when the weekend came and the much anticipated three-month summer holiday, we would leave the weatherboard homes in the morning and return only (again) when the street lights started to flicker at night. Mind you in the summertime, that would happen at the five pm mark, and in summer it was still daylight much to our disgruntled complaining. How many bullets would we have dodged? What unforeseen happenings would we have sped past on our bicycles? Grazed shins and sprained ankles could not keep us away. We played outside. Any patch of land, regardless if it was fenced or not, was open for a small army of kids under the age of twelve to claim as their very own playing field.

As I flick through the pages of the short recollections that make up the book, I remember the kids in the neighbourhood. Tracey, Stacey (yes they were sisters) Michael and a boy named Peter will be forever in my history. And like all suburbs when old houses are knocked down to make way for the new, and people move away a little bit of its history goes away with it. If you haven't read this book, I suggest you do. I will lend this to my new friend, she’ll be surprised and will ask questions, but I know she’ll laugh. Because in the late 70s, early 80s we didn’t cry, we always laughed even though now it seems so silly. And I laugh now even more. Although, it makes me wonder; whatever happened to Tracey? #storytelling #funnychildhood #australiainthe80s #richardglover #abcbooks #writers #writingcommunity #australia