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A Simpler Time : A Memoir of Love, Laughter, Loss and Billycarts
Author: Peter FitzSimons
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A memoir of love, laughter, loss and billycarts
It still amazes me what they allowed us to do without their supervision or help while remaining deeply loving parents. Climb trees from the age of four or five? No problem. Drive the tractor from the age of eight or nine onwards? Good luck to you. Haul on the hoist to pull the half-ton bins filled with oranges off the trailer? Yes. Take your bike out on the Pacific Highway and ride to school? Just be careful, but okay ...
Their rough reckoning was that if we thought we could do something, we probably could - and if we thought we couldn′t do something, we probably still could, if we applied ourselves.
Peter FitzSimons′s account of growing up on the rural outskirts of Sydney in the 1960s is first and foremost a tribute to family. But it is also a salute to times and generations past, when praise was understated but love unstinting; work was hard and values clear; when people stood by each other in adversity.
Above all, in the FitzSimons home, days were for doing. In this rollicking and often hilarious memoir, Peter describes a childhood of mischief, camaraderie, eccentric characters, drama - and constant love and generosity. The childhood of a simpler time.
About The Author
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald. He is the author of nearly twenty books - including Tobruk and biographies of Nancy Wake, Kim Beazley, Nene King, Nick Farr-Jones, Steve Waugh and John Eales - and was Australia’s bestselling non-fiction writer in 2001 and 2004.
Reviewed By Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Buzz Editor
To read more reviews by Toni Whitmont, click here to visit the Booktopia Newsletter Archive.
When it comes to telling a true story, no one does it better than
Fitzy. Whether he is spruiking on the radio, writing his weekly
newspaper column, or getting his teeth stuck into Kokoda, Tobruk, Nancy
Wake or
Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men, he always
manages to tell a damn good yarn and to take you along with him.
A Simpler Time
transports us back to the 1960s, to Peats Ridge,
horticultural country carved out of the bush just beyond
the reach of Sydney's northern suburban ring. For the first time,
FitzSimons is telling his own story, or at least the story of his
parents, and his own youth. With candour, warmth and affection, he
re-creates his experiences growing up the youngest in a tribe of mainly
brothers, of parents who turned their backs on the city to devote
themselves to their blossoming family and their orchard, of
knocking about barefoot both in the scrub and at school, of the dawning
of social and political consciousness as the 70s came crashing in and
of eccentrics, dramas and delights that were the stuff of the fringe
dwellers.
This book is an absolute delight to read. It is a fantastic choice for
both men and women, and would make a marvellous Father's Day gift as
well. It is good for a wry chuckle, an occasional tear, and for big
dose of nostalgia.
ISBN: 9780732288044
ISBN-10: 0732288045
Number Of Pages: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Dimensions (cm): 23.400 x 15.300
Audience:
General
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