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Everyone has a story. And some amazing ones, too.
That’s my conclusion after speaking to hundreds of people in book signing queues from Toowoomba to Tuggernong in recent weeks.
I’ve had the chance to listen to their personal stories, many of them harrowing.
Probably twenty people – maybe more – have leant across the desk as I’ve signed their book and whispered ‘Thanks for being so brave in telling us the story of your terrible childhood. I’m very grateful.’
I always explain that while my childhood was itinerant and turbulent at times, it was great fun and filled with love from my mother and sisters. What they tell me is that, like me, they had a drunken, sometimes violent father. So often, their stories are much more traumatic than mine. If the poor mother had five or six children it was almost impossible for her to escape the abuse. For the sake of the children women would have to put up with it. Years ago there was no real welfare or church support groups. It must have been hell.
Another woman introduced me to her mother, a Jewish lady from Hungary with an extraordinary story of escape. She was only a baby when her family was being transported to a Nazi concentration camp. Her father, she said, had killed a German soldier, put on his uniform and taken her – his baby girl – to a checkpoint, claiming she belonged to another Hungarian family. That had saved her life. Her father, mother and siblings were subsequently all killed.
My childhood seems pure serenity by comparison.
Another Vietnam vet came to have his book signed. He had begun his second round of chemo the previous day for a cancer that keeps hanging around. He’s a hero, having won a Military Cross in ’Nam as an SAS warrior back in the 70s. He’s just a few days younger than me.
Made me think about life, and those twists of fate…
The Canberra book-signing turn-out has been as enthusiastic as Shell’arbour. They crave aliens from the outside world down here. Continue reading
Today, Wollongong, Shell Harbour and across the mountain to Canberra. It was quite a gallop, with Aunt Karen – the Random publicist – mercilessly driving the show.
By nature, I’m one of those ‘glass half full’ blokes. Optimistic.
I always think I’m going to get a parking spot. And I do. I’m usually blessed with luck. Continue reading
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