Well, me mother was born in Australia. Me father was born in Denmark and the story is like he got a girl into trouble, so he jumped on a boat and travelled around and ended up in Australia. I remember being on a sugar farm. My father was cutting the trees down to plant sugar cane. We were cane farmers living in the country. Rode horses to school... You know we didn't have much in the house at all. There was no electricity in those days, but after I was married and had me child electricity come into the town and you see... of course me mother came over and she said you'll be able to iron the baby's clothes and everything with the electric iron. Well, I was only telling me great grandson about it the other day... He'd take a bite out of an apple and throw it away and then he'd you know and I said, well, look when we were kiddies, me father and me mother went to Brisbane and we were home with friends while they had their trip and me mother come back and she said that the kiddies were going through street garbage bins looking for food. I said "and here you are wasting it like that". You know, he just wasted his food. I said we were always... plenty of it, but we're always made eat it properly. Yeah, at the dances we met, he was a cane cutter, which is unheard of nowadays... They come from south up to the North Queensland for the cane season every season and that's how you used to meet all the young chaps when they come up for cane cutting. It wasn't a long courtship. He knew me long before I realized who he was or anything. Then when we really met, we married a couple of months after. That was taken 6 weeks after we were married. Me husband lived in a place called Cooran and we had to go into Gympie to get a wedding photo taken. That bunch of flowers is only is all paper flowers. Quite a big wedding. I had me two sisters bridesmaids. Everybody in the town... It's a small country town. The church was only two doors away and we went down the hall to have a breakfast and we danced. They danced there all night but my husband and I, we caught the train. We used to call it the "night horror". Everybody used to sneak out of town on this 12 o'clock train at night time, we caught the train at 12 o'clock that night. We went down to me grandparents in Ayr. They lived in Ayr. Have you heard of Ayr? No... That's A-Y-R. That was our honeymoon, yes... and we stopped there for a day or two and then travelled down to his people. We were in Silkwood and we had to blacken all our windows. You could hear the planes fly over at night time. So that's where we were all evacuated down south and me family stopped there and then, but me and my husband, we come back - I only had the one child - because they had to have the men cutting the cane you see so he had to come back again. And that's how he got in with the union so they said well, now you're married, you'll take on the position of... I don't know what they call them - sort of for the cane cutters, you see, and he started off with the cane cutters and then from there he ventured into being a worker, a union official for the Australian Workers Union. Tasmania was in trouble and they got this chap from Mount Isa to come down and manage the AWU and he rang and got me husband to come down here and me husband was used to do cane cutters and he had to come in here and do sheep. Alan was two so I can say he was born in... must have been 56... 56, 57. We come to Tasmania on the thirteenth of November. I remember that day he flew down like I was left behind with his mother come to stop with me and I had a little fella and the eldest boy and we caught the truck down and I visited me relations on the way down to Melbourne and come across on the Taroona. And I was frightened of being seasick and they told me to wrap the young baby - he was not quite three - in brown paper so he wouldn't be sick. And the boss in Hobart said we'll get you out of here as soon as possible... but I enjoyed Queenstown We had an AW house and we rented that and then the the boss always thought we didn't like... but I loved Queenstown, which was very friendly. He was such an easy person to get on with. And he knew that I always went to his wherever he went with different things. I went. I was always involved in what he was doing. Me husband and I had just come back from Geneva from the International Labor Conference of the World. He represented the Australian Workers Union and they all seemed to think that my husband could have suffered from what they didn't know much about which was the clotting in your legs from travelling. To see how we were and he had this funny turn, I said "you alright?" and he mumbled "I'm alright" and I thought "you're not" so I run next door. There's another couple there then, and I said will you come over and look after him because he wants to go to the toilet and I knew if he got out of bed he'd fall so I run over there and said "look after him while I ring the doctor" and she. She said, "don't wait for a doctor, I'll send the ambulance". He went in about 9:30 in the morning and he died about five that afternoon. Yeah... Cerebral haemorrhage. Well Brian Harradine because he's gone. They were great friends - me and Barbara and Brian. After Bill died and that I used to look after Barbara's kids and give Brian and Barbara a break. I used to have to entertain quite a few members of Parliament and everything like that. We were very friendly with Bob and Hazel Hawke. Well, Hazel was a funny person. She swore a lot, which I don't do, but she used to swear a lot. Bob was really a great sport. I've got a thing here that he signed. They were at the casino one time... Alan had to go because Alan was the secretary of the Australian... No he was the Electrical Trade Union boss and he was there to represent them and he went up to Hazel and he said to Hazel "I believe you knew my mother". He said, "who was that?" and she said "Julie Kenny". "Oh, yes" she said. So then, Bob wrote on the back of the menu "To Julie. I have great memories of your husband", you know, signed Bob Hawke. I don't know where that is now. Must look it up.