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    My Magic Islands: Memories of an Idyllic Childhood
    My Magic Islands: Memories of an Idyllic Childhood
    My Magic Islands: Memories of an Idyllic Childhood
    Ebook82 pages53 minutes

    My Magic Islands: Memories of an Idyllic Childhood

    By Judith M. Brady

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    About this ebook

    Judith grew up with family on the islands and
    Brisbane. Adult life took her around the world to
    experience living in Lae, New Guinea, Manila capital
    of the Philippines, Jakarta capital of Indonesia, and in
    the United Kingdom for six months. Retirement has
    brought her back to her islands enabling this memento
    of history to be recorded.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris AU
    Release dateMar 13, 2014
    ISBN9781493132218
    My Magic Islands: Memories of an Idyllic Childhood

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      Book preview

      My Magic Islands - Judith M. Brady

      Copyright © 2014 by Judith M. Brady.

      Library of Congress Control Number:                      2013922895

      ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-4931-3219-5

                                  Softcover                               978-1-4931-3220-1

                                  eBook                                    978-1-4931-3221-8

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

      in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

      recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

      without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      Rev. date: 03/05/2014

      To order additional copies of this book, contact:

      Xlibris LLC

      1-800-455-039

      www.xlibris.com.au

      Orders@xlibris.com.au

      514249

      CONTENTS

      1   My Magic Islands

      2   Lamb Island

      3   Russell Island

      4   Our Way of Life

      5   Into the City

      6   Ferrying Back

      7   War, Art and Entertainment

      8   ‘Cooee’

      9   End of War

      10   Epilogue—The Wheel Turns

      DEDICATED TO:

      My mother and father and the early farmers of the Bay Islands.

      1

      MY MAGIC ISLANDS

      Ubud, Bali, 2008

      A velvet night in Ubud… I sit on the balcony with my sister Anne. We are holidaying in Bali. We talk of the ancient stories from the ‘Mabaraharta’, the ‘Ramayana’ the story of Rama searching for his wife Sita; such wondrous tales of long ago. As we sip the sweet Bali coffee we begin to take a journey back in time, a journey to our early childhood of a time spent on an Island, Lamb Island—our enchanted Island, (Ngudooroo).

      Lamb Island is one of a cluster of Islands set in Moreton Bay being Coochiemudlo, Garden with its one inhabitant, Karragarra, Macleay, Russell and tiny Willis Island in Canaipa Passage, ringed by the larger Islands of North and South Stradbroke, with the Pacific Ocean beyond. The memories flood our thoughts to push this magic night on the Island of Bali temporarily away.

      15004.png

      Our father Ralph was one of ten children born to Arthur and Eliza Barker. Arthur had been a book and newspaper publisher in Melbourne, but as he was an asthmatic decided to move to Brisbane. The family lived in Bardon, an inner city suburb, for a few months and then moved to ‘Bronte’ a beautiful old Queensland home with acreage overlooking the Brisbane River at Norman Park. The home is still standing.

      14981.png

      Our grandfather, as the family story relates, was one day walking past Isles Love, the auctioneers, and stopped to watch. Within a short time grandfather Arthur had bought the ‘Chelsea’, a two masted schooner, and so began my father’s journey and association with the Bay Islands. The family sailed many times past the Islands on their way to Southport, a popular boating destination in the 20’s.

      2

      LAMB ISLAND

      My father had always longed to be on the land. As a boy of sixteen he had left the family home in Melbourne and worked on a sheep station. Now they were in Queensland and here on these Islands were farms producing fruit and vegetables for Brisbane and the southern market.

      So our grandfather bought a block of land for my father, Ralph, on Lamb Island in 1923. For the rest of her life our Aunt Agnes, Ralph’s sister, said Grandfather Barker did not bestow a kind gift, but one of hard labour. Our father was always a capable and hardworking man and was soon felling trees, burning the stumps, building a house and planting his first crops.

      On Lamb Island by the 1930’s there were a few other families. These were Cecil and Amelia Hine and their children, Eric and Eva Noyes and their children, Percy and his brother Bill Lovell, Herb Robinson and daughter, Peggy and Harry Brooks and their three children, Harry’s brother Sammy and his wife Doris, Roy Flood, Terrance and Mildred O’Dochety, Bob Robinson, Danny McPhail and his brother Gordon, Gordon’s wife and their two children. Gordon, sadly, was stung by bees and died as a result.

      14964.png

      There was also Jack and Florence Hogg, with their children, Peggy and Peter. They established a guest house by the jetty which boasted a pull chain toilet. There were one or

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