Don't go kissing at the garden gate
Adventure took my mother from a sheltered, happy family life in Sydney, to the freezing winter snows of alpine country, working as personal secretary for the Head Engineer of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Her first night there she was invited to a dance up in the highlands, being held to raise money for the family of a man killed in an accident. She said she had never been so cold and wore her gloves on her frozen feet, crying on the bus taking the girls to the dance hall, as her high heels offered no comfort. She told me she received three marriage offers that first night, men far outnumbering the available women, the majority, dubbed “New Australians”, having journeyed across the world, leaving the still-fresh horrors of war for a new life in the sun.
