When I was a child, I grew up around my grandmother’s dinner table. We would watch her cooking as she explained to us what ingredients were needed, when to put them in, and how she could bring together food and family on the very same plate. Her wood fired stove heating that tiny kitchen, warming us in the wintertime, like a hug from Nan herself. As she cooked and talked about growing up with her brothers and playing tackle football in the backyard. She would talk of our extended families and of what it was like growing up back in those old days. Another topic was how she learned that whenever she felt lost or uneasy, she would go out to her garden, barefoot, to place her hands in the dirt where she would be reassured by Country that everything was going to work out just the way that it was supposed to.

She talked of how she met my dear Grandfather, Poppy Joe, back in 1938 when she was just 11 years old. Poppy Joe would often tell the same story of when he was on horseback with his dad, old Pop Trindall, as they rode across to my maternal Great Grandfather, Mr Wallace’s place; and there she was, barefoot, playing football with her brothers in the backyard.

He was hooked.

Mesmerised.

As they rode away, Pop said to his father, ‘D’you see that girl there Dad? I’m gonna marry her one day’. A few years passed and they were indeed married on 27 August 1946 and they remained married for over 65 years. They became parents of seven children, losing one as a baby, and another much later in life.

They began their lives together as drovers. Pop told us of when they once drove 3000 head of cattle from Brisbane to a place down near Melbourne, a journey of some 1600km, just shy of 1000 miles in the old scale. They were based in Narrabri but moved around, following the work and the weather, eventually settling in the little village Attunga just outside of Tamworth, on Gomeroi Country. Nan and Pop wanted to move there so they could give their girls, my Aunty Amy and my Ma, a chance at a better education.

Their tiny kitchen, that wood fired stove.

Her rolling pin, a magic wand.

My first home.

They’re both gone now. Pop for more years than I wish to remember; Nan stayed with us for a few years after we lost him. Loneliness can do terrible things to a widow of 67 years. After droving, moving, working, raising families, and being such an important part of so many people’s lives; at the age of 92, she passed and they were together again.
Maybe, somehow, they found home in each other.

Last year I walked the streets of Byron Bay with an old man who’s much like my Pop, told me that home is out there somewhere, in the bush and that you wouldn’t find him in the big smoke of the city anymore. He explained this all to me as we walked to the post office where he had to send his knives home as they wouldn’t let him carry them on the plane; he asked, ‘What do they think I’m gonna do nephew, fucking stab someone?’. He continued on about getting too old, and about wanting to go out bush to his property. ‘You see, you drive down south, near that big mountain range, go past the gate, and you just keep driving, you’ll get there eventually son’. Poppy Joe all over.

Later we made our way slowly south, trying to dodge thunderstorms, pressing winds and blinding rain. We left too late so we arrived at our destination far later and far wearier than we would have hoped.

I used to live there, my old man, he comes from there.