ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER
One thing always leads to another. One of the many interviews that I have done has lead to a learned fellow coming up to do a podcast about ageing, with me, the nonagenarian, doing the talking! He thought it was very good, and a week or so later I received a request from him…would I consider being interviewed by a well-known woman in New York who was putting a book together on aged women achievers. ‘Of course,’ I replied. It led to a marvellous conversation with a charming lady who wanted to know all about the four main books that I had written…especially the last one about ‘Gardening in Your Nineties, the sequel to Sex in Your Seventies.’ She had also interviewed two other women who were in their eighties. One was a playwright who was in the throes of having her play produced in New York; the other was a writer of children’s books who was about to have her fourth book published. So I was in very good company, to say nothing of the interviewer herself who was a remarkable person (and almost out of her seventies.) I mentioned that I would just love to sit and chat to the other three, and all concurred with the idea. My interviewer loved it that I said I endeavoured to remain cheerful even in difficult times, and that my mantra was ‘If you don’t use it you lose it!’
THE SILVER THIMBLE
We were leaving the district. Leaving the farm that had been home to four generations of my father’s family. The Great Depression still raged and times were tough for a small dairy farmer of 1937. They would try their luck in the city. A share farmer was arranged, a...
THE MEAT ANTS ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
We walked barefoot to school at Logan Village. The gravel road near the Quinzy Creek bridge was sometimes covered in large meat-ant’s nests. These big red ants packed a powerful sting of which we were most aware. Joan and I skirted round the nests, but one day, Marty...