Midi playing - Thanks    From "Night Owl" "Growing Up" Me-1948 Nobody Promised It Would Be Easy! Typical of me ... if I didn't have my head in a book I was lost. About Me! Today I am a Great Grandmother - therefore most of the photos you will see were taken 50 - 60 years ago! In yesteryear I was a .... ... shy and lonely girl, my first memories are when I was four, I cut off the top of my middle finger. A bush doctor attended to me - he sat me on his dining room table and - without any anaesthetic - he stitched the top back on. After that I had nightmares about a Chinaman chasing me with a large knife, these lasted for many months. During my schooldays that finger haunted me - along with having been born with a "Harelip" I was always the school "freak" It didn't help that in my 10 years of schooling - I went to 13 schools. I was never at one school long enough for others to accept me. It was my father's fault - he could never suffer fools; he considered all bosses were fools! So time after time we moved from country, to city, to country, until WW11 and he joined the RAAF (the Australian Air Force) as a cook, he was stationed in New Guinea until he was invalided home. Schooldays! When I was in the second grade - Hamilton - Victoria. I was about 7 then. At the end of my school days! I was 15. Taken with my young sister. In Melbourne, the Capital City of Victoria. My Passion! Books became my "Best Friends" I spent many long hours reading anything or everything I could get my hands on. My mother always sent me to the local lending library to get books for her, at one penny a book. I would save my penny pocket money - plus walk to school to save another penny. I saved this way to get books for myself. My mother never knew, I always tucked the extra books I had borrowed, in through my window when I got home. The extra books were read by torchlight under the bedclothes.     More Photos if you wish to see them!                Return to *Tangled Tales*  Midi playing - Thanks           Laurie - July 2002