Where I come from...
So, I'll tell you a story.
Where I come from, we say our voices are on the wind.
Old people told me this, so it must be true.
#tweetyarn
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
This yarn, it begins and ends where all things do.
On my country.
We say we are murrdi... 'one people'.
So this yarn, it also includes you.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
I've been asked more than once where I come from, so I'll let you know now, I am from the black soil country, of North West New South Wales.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
That black soil is clean, the rivers were rich, there was plenty of tucker before the ration sheds came to gave us the flour, sugar and tea.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
My mother lived in a little wooden house with her mother and father. With brothers and sisters, it was a little bit tight, eighteen and all.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
[Grandfather Bob Lamb, and his wife Maisie with my uncle, a baby in 1962.] pic.twitter.com/HjalNH4mZc
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Many people grew up on stations out west. A fair few of them lived on that one station, with at one time 37 children and about 5,000 sheep.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
The adults all worked, while the children fought and yes they played too.
Spent days looking for trees with nests, that bear gum and fruit.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
And like many of you, who recall families from past days, at night by the light my grandfather would read.
His hands rough on smooth pages.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
A book is a portal to a world you build in your mind.
Grandfather Bob Lamb saw the future and made sure that all of his children could read.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
People often tell me that in photos Grandfather Bob looks mighty sharp but it was in dreams for his children that he shone brightest of all.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
It's true they were poor, their choices were few, no freedom to leave, and neither Bob Lamb or Maisie could vote when they planted the seed.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
'If you can read a book, you will go far in this life', my grandfather said, so my mother taught herself to read with Anne of Green Gables.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
My mother was the eldest of 18 children, and the trees still grow in the spot where she hid her book in the branches. pic.twitter.com/lW115ndXAY
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
That's quite a yarn, that Anne of Green Gables and my mother would often tell us as children of her delight in what she found in it's pages.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our mother loved books, she read many others, but was ready to leave before she equalled my grandfather, who read every book on the station.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
My mother left an outback NSW station, her travel plans supplemented by what she heard on the wireless and headed off to Queensland to work.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
History tells the story of the jackaroos who drove cattle into distant parts of Australia, but they should include mention of the jillaroos.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our mum drove cattle - Townsville to Millstream - and for those unfamiliar that route is from Queensland to Western Australia. On horseback.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our mother Pamela May Parker nee Lamb walking down St Georges Tce, Perth. Newspaper photographer name unknown. c1960s pic.twitter.com/Ft6ypqTrwz
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our mum's letters home descibed what she saw in her travels, while our Grandfather designed and built better homes for those on the station.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our mother was determined we'd go far from an outback NSW sheep station.
The Parkers, Barcelona, Spain 1975. pic.twitter.com/LqhfocQK6e
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
And then we followed in my mothers tracks.
My brother has a science degree and has worked to map remote regions of north Qld, the NT and WA.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
I worked the land claims of the far north, that included sections of the old stock routes my mother drove cattle over, thirty years before.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Our youngest brother went to Europe for 8 years, worked for a time at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, speaks Spanish and taught them English.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
And my mother's other child started work as a cadet journalist on St Georges Tce, Perth and ended here. On the right. pic.twitter.com/5a7KKfL1iB
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
For those abroad, please note the Australian Prime Minister (left) with the Co-Chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
Footnote: My grandfather died before stolen wages were paid out (in part) to workers from the 50s & 60s. But he always said we were murrdi.
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
And I'll let this #tweetyarn sit for now. Thankyou for your interest. :D
'We are murrdi... we are one people.'
— Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014
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