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Are memoirs of any interest to you?

5/24/2015

8 Comments

 
For the last few months, I've snatched a few moments to work on my memoirs. Everybody has a story to tell, and my life stretches back over seventy years. While I can still remember events, I'm writing what happened to me, and how society, and men's attitude to women in general, affected me. To be sure, not much has changed. Women are still down-trodden and unappreciated in all works of life. Sexual discrimination is rife, and people of the female gender are preyed upon.

Here's a short excerpt—a section I wrote yesterday.

In 1962, we moved to Goolwa after G had looked around for another job. Mother was close to her employer, who owned a 'holiday park' there made up of old trams bought from the Glenelg line. His workmen ripped the interior partition walls out of the beautifully appointed, interior walls lined with gleaming wood, so they formed a bedroom each end and the living space in the middle. We moved in to one of the cabins, opposite the central 'store', where we sold supplies to the holiday makers. Grandma lived in the house at the entrance and mother visited every now and again with her employer, R.

I enjoyed the relaxed lifestyle, living in a cabin with my new baby, who was a happy child. Most days, I would take him to the Murray River's edge close by, where R owned a boat shed. Sometimes, we'd dip in the water. Both of us had a good tan. Back then, I didn't know I should protect a baby's delicate skin—and mine. Wearing short shorts, I'd stroll to the main township with Kym in his beautiful cane pram, styled like the prams of old. The locals called us hippies but we weren't practising free love, we were married.

In 1963, We took over the house where Grandma lived. She moved into one of the owner's many houses in Adelaide. The days at Goolwa were long and lazy with Graeme on call to fix anything that went wrong for the visitors and give a hand with the team of builders who worked in R's main house close by. Kym would crawl around the floor and I'd leave him where he slept rather than lift him into his cot. But then, I found I was pregnant again. This time, I wasn't so resentful about the pregnancy and G was overjoyed.

Later that year, the tourist business must have been slow because he decided to move close to his brother in Victoria.

The first place we stayed in when we moved out of our host's spare room was an old farmhouse, smelling of rat droppings and completely decrepit. I slept a lot, leaving my toddler to roam free in the house. It's a wonder disease didn't kill him. We moved as soon as possible.

We rented a house on the Hume Highway, the main route out of Melbourne heading North. Beveridge, as it was then, was close to the place the infamous robber Ned Kelly lived with his mother. Now, the town is gone. I found a mother-and-baby group at the farmhouse opposite and the children would play together while the mothers chatted. To earn money, G took on farm work picking up rocks from a field, but it didn't suit him. He was marked out for a different job, and he knew it.

What I'm wondering is this: Would you be interested in reading a memoir about a woman you don't know?

8 Comments
Corinne Rodrigues link
5/23/2015 11:09:19 pm

I would, Francene. I love memoirs! Hope you publish yours someday soon.

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Alana Mautone link
5/24/2015 12:23:35 am

I would be, Francene. Your life was so different than mine. I've written down some toughts about my own life, but when I look at memoirs for sale, I am discouraged. It seems, in the United States, to have your memoir published you must either have grown up in a hippie family (speaking of free love), in a seriously dysfunctional family, in a religious cult, have been a drug addict, or...well, you get the picture I'm none of those. Yawn, I guess.

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Carol Cassara link
5/24/2015 12:28:49 am

I do that all the time. I have had my own in progress for 4 years and just can't move forward enough on it.

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Scott link
5/24/2015 12:29:42 am

Since biographies are my favorite type of book, this fits right in. It is always interesting to hear about one's past, especially their view of it now as an adult.

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Debbie D. link
5/24/2015 03:43:45 am

I love reading others' memoirs and biographies (it's my favourite reading genre) and am always writing my own, as well. Your story sounds interesting, Francene.

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Laurel Regan link
5/24/2015 04:45:17 am

I would indeed! I find others' memoirs fascinating.

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K.Lee Banks link
5/24/2015 07:15:28 am

Yes, I would be interested. It's fascinating reading personal accounts of people from other countries, cultures, interests, age ranges, and/or lifestyles.

Reply
Lata link
5/25/2015 06:59:29 pm

Francene, writing memoirs serves as a catharsis besides recapturing golden memories:)

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    Francene Stanley
    From England, I use news items in my novels which you can see below, all linked to an Amazon near you.

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