There is not a shadow of doubt that the most influential person in my life was my mother. Indeed, when aged eighteen I met my father for the first time,  he commented that I was “my mother’s daughter”.

My parents separated when I was just a few months old, my father moving to Canada with his new wife, my mother remaining in Rome until migrating to Australia in 1960. Yet oddly enough it was my father’s wife who changed the course of my life.

As children, my sister and I would get the most exciting presents for our birthdays and Christmas. Santa Claus could not have done better. This changed as we morphed into teenagers, and the presents became generous cheques to spend to our liking.

It was only as an adult that I realised that those parcels must have been put together by Flo, not my father. They contained amazing dresses, books, toys. The dresses always a perfect fit, and guaranteed to be instantly loved, ditto the toys and books. One dress that I still remember with love had a pattern of Chinese girls each sporting very long plaits.

The only item that I have ever regretted giving away was my teddy bear “Bobbie”, which I received when I was three or four. On impulse, I gave Bobbie to a young child living next door to me in Brunswick. She was the youngest of a large, loving Italian family, who treated the children’s toys as disposable ephemera. Hence the regret, knowing that Bobbie would have been eventually discarded in the back yard and left to rot. An unfair ending to a loyal, snuggly Teddy Bear.

So how did Flo change the course of my life? At Uni I studied the classics. I may have already written about  how this degree did not offer huge paths to employment. I hence worked at the Presbyterian Book Room, a joyful year until my father offered to support me if I enrolled for a Librarianship course. His rationale: “You can’t spend your life working behind a counter as a shop assistant.” (No comment!)

I was in my fifties when I realised that this solution to my father’s angst would have come from Flo. It was a brilliant solution. I loved my life as a librarian, which equipped me for my life as a bookseller, which I have also loved.

So, thank you Flo for redirecting me to a wonderful life as a librarian, a life which involved being paid to work with books and readers and which in turn enabled me to become a bookseller.
 
Delfina Manor
​March 2026

​A number of people have had a strong influence on my life, family, workmates, teachers, people I got to know through my life.

My parents instilled in me the importance of honesty and integrity. I was definitely not an A student and totally lacked confidence, but my parents weren’t too worried by that. They encouraged me to try my best and so as long as I did that, and stuck to those two values, they were proud of me. We were poor in assets but rich in what mattered. I grew up in a farming community so most of my food was grown at home and playtime always included mud or mess. Through them I also learnt the importance of hard work and the value of money, as in, don’t waste it.

Dad worked and mum looked after kids and home, as was normal back in those days, but occasionally they needed time out. I didn’t find out till years later that Mum had been very ill and that Dad had come back from the war a broken man and needed ongoing assistance to settle into normal life again. During those times Mum’s sister Edna would come and ‘babysit’. Edna was a free spirit and never had kids of her own (her choice). She lived on the river in a canal boat so visits to her were a real adventure.

Aunt Edna was a major influence on me. She was an artist and I loved to paint, so when tasked with my care we would often set up easels and paints. She would create an amazing masterpiece and I would make mess, paint through the hair, over the clothes etc. Mum was not amused. Another time Edna decided to get working on her pottery wheel where she created some lovely ornaments, vases etc. I was set up in a corner with some clay to play with and proudly presented Mum with my “creation”. A sort of vase thingy. Plus, clothes and hair covered in clay. Again, she was not amused. Soon I had a little apron to wear. Some of the other activities we created were Christmas wreaths made from twigs and intertwined with holly and ivy. An old galleon made from driftwood with sails of leather.

Even criminals have had a strong influence on my life. To explain, I have been at the wrong end of a gun in a robbery, trapped under rubble after a terrorist bomb exploded, and have rescued victims from a variety of situations caused by criminal activity. Those events taught me to value life and make the most of it. Don’t waste time worrying about minor stuff.

The strongest influence on life is life itself.  


Heather Hartland
March 2026

If I could lift the lid on the washing machine of my life, there would be a tangle of intertwining and conflicting influences. I might struggle to sort out which is me/myself, how much is inherited family traits and behaviours, how much is social pressure and circumstances. Out of this mix of influences, am I some kind of hybrid or a unique individual?
 
Swirling around in my early years, I see the social boundaries fencing my life;
parents,
a network of grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins,
Sunday church and
the ABC’s ‘Kindergarten of the Air’.
 
Physical boundaries extend up over the hills and down into the river flats to the creek, a natural division between our farm and the neighbour’s. I assume everyone has a shearing shed in their yard - or, like the cow cockies on my mother’s side, a milking shed. I also believe in Santa Claus. Perhaps it was a possum, but my parents share the excitement of Santa’s sleigh landing on the garage roof.
 
The main occupations traditionally pursued in my extended family were farmers, teachers, engineers. Perhaps there was some inevitability that I became a teacher, my brother a surveyor and the other brother a farmer with a fencing business.
 
Sometimes, however, we go in different directions, influenced by other forces. My parents were devoutly religious, but my ethical beliefs are philosophical rather than religious. My mother’s devotion to the Hawthorn football Club was passed to one brother and her horse racing interests to another. I was a ‘WAG’ (football wife) once but my interest in football was always superficial. None of us achieved the bike riding feats of our father, but two of us have covered significant kilometres on our push bikes, each in our own manner. The other brother was, until recently, a legend on the quad bike.
 
Visits to the grandmothers happened at random intervals. Both were strong women, widows who kept their respective farms out of debt while managing large families. One Grandma kept fearsome turkeys in the same paddock as the outside dunny. The other Grandma had a garden of roses, veggies and giant sunflowers.
 
Having a sweet tooth is a family trait I share with others. Grandma’s sister, Auntie Lila, set a high standard whenever visitors arrived. Seated in her front parlour, we munched on salada biscuits topped with Kraft cheese and salted tomatoes. Auntie Lila and Mum would disappear out to the kitchen and reappear with a trolley laden with homemade biscuits, sweet slices, small cakes and fruit cake.
 
Sunday church was the routine social outing of the week. A microcosm of the broader world, the second-row seat indicated our place in the social hierarchy of the small community. The front row family established the sliding scale of monetary value, acknowledged by the priest on the Sunday after Easter, when he read out the ‘Easter dues’ donated by each family. There were other children my age, but they were boys so after Mass, I stood around with the adults listening to discussions of too much rain or no rain, lamb sales and the price of wool. I was becoming an observer and listener, absorbing and pondering about what I was seeing and hearing.

Family and social influences were already beginning to amalgamate before more life happened and more people, places and events tossed around the person who became me/myself.


Anne Stewart
​March 2026

​For much of my early life I was very much influenced by my parents. My father was a builder, and from the age of 10, I spent time at the weekends on building sites, as one of the crew. I had a very enquiring mind and would look at house plans and block layout drawings to ensure that there were no mistakes, or fixtures located where they would not operate. At the age of 12, I was doing house block layouts for my father, that ensured that all of the required easements and setbacks were achieved.

I attended Technical College and whilst I had a background in carpentry, my real passion was with aeronautical engineering. I built and flew model aircraft as a hobby. Upon completion of my Leaving Certificate, I was intending to transfer to Preston Technical College to complete a Diploma in aeronautical or mechanical engineering. Unfortunately my father’s business was going through a quiet period and the family finances would not allow me to pursue my engineering career.

I left school and joined the commercial workforce. I held a number of very interesting positions with the Commonwealth Bank and rose through a number of positions, including a secondment to the computer section.

I moved from the bank to a number of positions with larger companies over the years, but always had an enquiring mind and looked at their operations and systems to see if any improvements, or cost savings, could be made.

In 1978 I applied for a management role with a large international company. Prior to being accepted, I was required to undertake a full psychoanalysis. This was conducted by a reputable firm and took almost the entire working day. I was later contacted by the my prospective employer and offered the position. I asked at the initial interview, what was the result of the analysis. I was told that I had senior management potential. Being 30 years of age, that was news that gave me some encouragement.

Six months after commencing with the company, I was contacted by the firm who had conducted the  psychoanalysis, asking if I could make time to go over the results of the test. Being very inquisitive, I agreed, but had some concern as to why this was not discussed with me at the appointment interview. Perhaps because of a possible salary negotiation?

What was revealed by the consultant, was the fact that I had an above average ‘clerical’ ability. In his words, the ability to perceive key information that was surrounded by superfluous wording, or data.

AI: From a psychological perspective, clerical ability is interpreted as a specialized aptitude or cognitive skill set, primarily focusing on perceptual speed, accuracy in processing information, and attention to detail.

It was revealed during the interview that this skill was not acquired, I was born with it. The problem that I now had, was attempting to identify which of my family I had inherited this skill from. It may be considered that the skill is a blessing, unfortunately it can be a curse.

You are given a set of circumstances that do not ‘compute’, and you agonise over the issues, until you receive additional information, to solve the dilemma.

I am still trying to identify which of my forbears blessed, or cursed me, with this skill.


Barry O’Connor
​March 2026

My mother had the most influence on my life.  She was like a sole parent as my father lived and worked away from home. 

As regards Grandparents, we knew our maternal Grandmother as Aunty Rose, we had no idea who our grandfather was. 

On Dad’s side, his parents lived in England.

With the advent of the second World War, Dad joined the RAAF. He was stationed in New Guinea for most of the war.

Mum had three children to care for at the start of the war, Sid was 8, Rita was 6 and I was 4.  Times were tough.  We lived in an isolated area and mum got regular income from the Government and Child Endowment.  Mum used the money to pay the rent and the food for us, we never went hungry, but I think it was touch and go sometimes.

As we grew older Sid and Rita spent less time at home, so I spent most of my time with Mum and we were great mates.  She had to be both mother and father to us.

After the war was over my parents received what was known as Deferred Pay.  Dad spent some time at home, first off as a potato digger.  He would ride his bike - called a BARB - to where the potatoes were grown. I would be waiting for him to come home to see how many bags he had dug.  On a good day he may have dug 30 bags and received 3 shillings a bag. 

When the potato digging season had finished, Dad would work at the local Milk Factory in the Cheese Room as a cheese maker.  He had to give that away as he kept getting milk rash. 

Dad neither had a car licence, nor drove a car, however he seemed to get by.  His next and last job was as a boiler cleaner at Yallourn, where he stayed until he retired.

Meanwhile, Mum was in charge of three teenagers and a new baby sister, Lorraine.  Having teen aged kids and a baby was a ‘double whammy’.

Dad would get a bus and a train to travel between Yallourn and Longwarry, our hometown.  If he came off night shift and had 5 days off, he spent all his time playing billiards. Having worked nights, he was sleep deprived and often hard to get on with.
While everything seemed to be under control, Mum died very suddenly. 

Mum was 58 when she died, my younger sister Lorraine was still at Drouin High School doing year eleven.  I was working at Wangaratta at the time and got a transfer to Warragul to look after Lorraine; sadly, this didn’t work out very well as I was always working away from home.

The older I became, the more I appreciated what Mum had done for us.  She had a very pleasant nature and persevered under very difficult circumstances.  She was very popular and was very community minded.  She was the President of the Mother’s Club at the local school for many years, first when her older children were at school, then when Lorraine went to school. 

My mother had the most influence on my life.  I loved my Mum.  
​
 
Max Tilbury
March 2026

I have known my Aunt Barbara all my life. She has always been a loving Aunt. She was my father’s second sibling of three.

Whilst I was growing up in England I saw a lot of my aunt. I always loved visiting my father’s parents, his sisters and his brother.

They were always very pleasant and caring to myself and my 7 siblings. During school holidays, we would spend time with different Aunts and Grandparents. My mother needed the occasional break from a few of us.

Eventually we got to meet cousins who came along later and watched them grow to an age where we could all spend time together, playing and having fun. I remember Christmas was always a great time, watching Christmas movies, singing a Christmas Carol for our Nan and Aunts and then receiving a nice Christmas chocolate off the tree.

This all came to an end when my parents and all 8 kids moved to Australia. Due to where I was living for the first year in Australia, I hated it. I missed my mates, my cousins and my Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts.

I seriously wanted to go home, everything I saw, looked at, listened to. It reminded me of England. If it didn’t, I would make it work so that it did.

After 30 years I eventually got to go home for a 3-month holiday. My grand parents had passed away, but all my uncles, aunts and cousins were still there. In the same town, the same street and the same house. There were more houses to visit now, cousins had grown up, married and had their own homes and their own children. My second cousins. Admittedly they were still quite young, but the Barnaby family was still growing.

Whilst in England my wife and I stayed with my Aunt Barbara and her husband Ray. We were there for 2 months on and off, it was a place to call home whilst we travelled around the UK.

My Aunt couldn’t do enough for us. She was a very special Aunt; we got to love her dearly even more.

My uncle passed away and my aunt was on her own.  She had 2 sons, my cousins, who were both married and had families of their own. They lived nearby and my aunt would go to one of my cousin’s homes and we would talk for well over an hour each time on Skype, as well as hours on the phone. It became a regular occurrence.  It was always a long chat about all the different relatives on both sides of the world, keeping up to date with all the news.

One of my cousins’ daughters would visit my Aunt, her Nan, with her 2 children every Wednesday. Being a hairdresser, she took care of Auntie’s Hair and spent time talking with her.

My wife and I got to talk to this girl by ringing on a morning when she was visiting my aunt.  She sounded very genuine in caring for my aunt, and I thanked her many times for doing that.

Unfortunately, Aunt tripped over and broke her arm about 6 months ago. She never really recovered, became quite depressed and miserable and told us she was ready to go, she had had enough.

That was upsetting for us and everyone else who knew her, simply because her sister had said the same things before she passed away.

My Aunt’s funeral was on a Friday morning in England, a Friday evening here. Thankfully my cousins were able to organise a live stream of the funeral for us to watch over here in Australia - it was the next best thing to actually being there.
​
This Aunt was a very special woman in my life. She will be greatly missed. R I P Aunty.
 
Tom Barnaby
March 2026

​The biggest influence in my life was My Nan. She had six sisters and three brothers and came from a working-class background. Money was short, but love and companionship was in abundance.

Nan Elsie Lewis with her mother and sisters  Top -   Annie, Elsie, Lily; Middle - Katie, Zillah Manston (My Great Grandmother), Emmy;  Front - Daisy, Ethel.  

​Elsie met George, a very handsome sailor, in 1918. My mother was born in 1920, followed by sister Edna six years later. Money was short after the First World War, but Grandad purchased a shop close by and opened a news agency.

When the children were young, Nan took herself off to night school to do a wood polishing course. She took to it like a duck out of water, and over the years built up a lucrative business.
 
Then World War II began.
 
Grandad’s shop was one of the first to be bombed in our area. In those days there was no Insurance. Not to be beaten, he took tables to the railway station, selling papers and books under the stairs. Nan’s little sideline came to an end, so both did Wardens courses. Most nights saw them helping the people who were injured, some even staying over at our house for a night or two.
 
By this time my mum, also named Elsie, had given birth to me. My dad was in the R.A.F., so we also lived with Nan and Grandad.
 
Food was short, everyone was given ration books. Nan spent her spare time working in the garden - there was just enough room to plant veggies between the back door and the air raid shelter. She exchanged her veggies for eggs and meat. Somehow our family always had food on the table.
 
On Mondays, Nan was seen sweating over the archaic washing machine, doing the sheets and towels and all our clothes washing.
 
My mum was employed by the Government, working in the underground tunnels in London, informing relatives of the death of their loved ones. So, Nan was my main carer. How she fitted everything in, I don’t know, but I always had plenty of cuddles.
 
Eventually the war ended, and I started school. Dad returned safely.  Mum and Dad bought a house, next door but one to my grandparents. They both worked, so my grandparents took me to school, and Nan always had something lovely on the table after I came home.
 
At eighteen I boarded a ship to Australia. They both cried when I hugged them goodbye. Mum and Dad took me to the ship, just as upset but trying not to show it.
 
It wasn’t until I had my own family that I realised what a great teacher Nan was. She taught me how to cook, clean, wash and iron. I loved and missed her so much. She visited here for a few months with sister Daisy. Mum and Dad had emigrated in 1969 after my Grandad died. It was a no-brainer really that Nan returned for good on her 79th birthday and came to live on our farm in Upper Lurg.
 
Nothing stopped her. She insisted on doing all the ironing. She fed the rams scraps every day, bottle fed the abandoned lambs. And, most of all, spent quality time with her grandsons. It was nothing to see her riding on the back of their motorbikes, helmet on of course. Or sitting in the canoe with a life jacket, and both boys taking her for a tour of the dam.
 
Sadly, she suffered a massive stroke in 1984. This time she didn’t recover.
 
Mum and I were so lucky to have her in our lives. She was sadly missed.
 
 
Jan Nichols.

​​​Peeping around the bedroom door, we discovered something exciting. Grandmother had long hair! She always wore it in a bun on the back of her head but one day we found out what it was really like. I always thought I was the one who made the discovery but I may have to give my sister the credit, because I was only two at the time.

Grandma had travelled from Echuca to Hobart to look after us while our new sister was born. Who paid for the travel I have no idea, as neither family was well off. It was eight years before I saw her again.

Maggie Morrison was seven when her family came to Australia from Glasgow and settled in Orbost. Maggie became a school teacher and later married farmer, Herbert McRae. They move around Gippsland on share farms before buying a small farm near Echuca in 1914.  ​During these years Maggie gave birth to seven children.