AustLit

'‘I write to make it real.’ How often I have said that over the years? I didn’t make it up to sound clever, it is what I do and who I am. In a life filled to overflowing with richness and challenges, there has been much to write about and I have. Flower Child was born when I was thrust unexpectedly back sixty-something years into my childhood by the perfume of a flower in a quiet room. Flower Child is a tiny glimpse of a time, the place and some of the people that laid the foundations of who I was to become. It is where I learned the standards and values that I have lived my life by. In the doubt-filled aftermath of a recent challenge to the core of who I am and how I live, I have again found healing in writing. These are my memories.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Two poets find an unexpected harmony in a very special collaboration.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'As a child I drove my mother to distraction with my constant question, Why? After a stream of these endless whys I can still hear her exasperated voice saying, 'Why because.' and I knew that was the time to stop - at least for a while. Nothing has changed. I am still asking questions. These days I know there are no specific answers but it can be fun exploring possibilities. Wise woman or philosopher? Is there a difference? I have no piece of paper that says I'm qualified to be either or both, but my life has been an amazing journey of experiences and in this collection of essays I am using them to try and understand the world I live in and perhaps be more aware of how I might be affecting others.' (Publication summary)

'The author recalls growing up in Forty Green, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, in the years after World War II.' (Publication summary)

'In his poem ‘The Road Not Taken’, Robert Frost writes of taking the road less travelled and this making all the difference. In ‘Leisure’, W.H. Davies writes, ‘What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’. Both poems have strongly influenced how I have lived my life. In the past, I have said I write to make people think and with my passion I was hoping to make people more aware of their impact on others. I have written to try and understand my own choices and responses to the behaviour of others. I learned long years ago that we must fight very hard for peace and it is a continuing fight but there must also be a time to enjoy the inner peace so hard won. In my need for respite, I started to write of things that made me smile and discovered I could smile. The fights are not all fought but I believe I have a better idea about what I am fighting for. Meanwhile, I will let the opening lines of ‘Leisure’ work their magic…' (Publication summary)

'Twenty-four good-humoured poems looking at things which are not quite what first appearances suggest.' (Publication summary)

'The stories collected here from Tales From My Patagonia, Down by the River, It’s Still Out There, There’s a Rainbow Serpent in My Garden and Eastwards are like a running journal of discovery. There will be others, because my discoveries are not finished by any means and I always have to write things down to make them real. But with each trip out into what I now lovingly call my extended garden, I am free of angst and, while in some respects no longer the innocent child, I learn more and more why I have always felt so at home in Australia.' (Publication summary)