Library staff members Lesley Conway and Pia Butcher run a radio show each Wednesday 12:05pm-12:45pm on Eastern FM 98.1 called The Eastern Regional Library Show. Tune in next Wednesday for a great show.
On Wednesday's show
No one's child is the story of author Judith McNeil's childhood from the age of five to fourteen, in a family which followed the father's work as a railway fettler around the Queensland countryside in the 1950's. Judith spoke to us on air several weeks ago about her first book, The girl with the cardboard port, which described her flight from her violent step-father at 16, to marriage to a Singaporean student and several difficult and dangerous years living in Singapore and Malaysia at the mercy of her eratic husband, until her return to Australia at 24 years of age.
Judith came back today to talk about the earlier years, and described how some crucial friendships helped her gain strength and confidence in herself in spite of a violent father, extremes of poverty, and constant thwarting of her passion to gain an education. Judith writes with clarity, spare and eloquent description and a great ear for dialogue. She says in her epilogue
" I have been either blessed or cursed by and extraordinary memory", and this channels into a powerful story which conveys both the challenges she faced, and the joys of friendship and learning which sustained her. Judith draws a vivid picture of a time full of physical challenges and of racial and gender discrimination.
Her story reminds me in many ways of the stoical and positive A.B. Facey who wrote A fortunate life, and of the books written by Patsy Adam Smith whose family worked the railways in country Victoria in the 1940's. I recommend this as a book you will pick up and not put down until you have read the last page.
---- Lesley
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