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"Even before I was born, I was trying to do things my own way. I made life difficult for my mother, Jess, who was confined to bed for the last trimester of her pregnancy. I had disappointed my father, Geoff, by insisting that I be born a day earlier than his birthday, and I had mercifully waylaid their plans to call me Elizabeth."
So begins my story that has me watching rockets going up at the Woomera Rocket Range, beating the boys at marbles (and winning the prized milky white marble with coloured orange waves), nearly being run over in a toilet, swimming with a snake on my way to inspect a very dead horse, setting tongues wagging in Canberra in a Commonwealth car and eliminating plastic bananas from Australia's entire eastern seaboard. And yes, the Governor General did clean my shoes.
About the author
Many years ago, Jeanette Trefle promised herself she would write her story before she got (too) old and doddery. She thinks that while history in textbooks is made up of big events, for the rest of us, history is made by family and friends, teachers and the crazy man up the road. She wanted to write down her memories so her grandchildren would know where she discovered some of her weird ideas and what she did with her time before she met them.
