An Outback Life

 An Outback Life

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       November 26, 2014

 

Author  Mary Groves

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ISBN:                 978-1-74237-705-6
Publisher:         Arena/Allen & Unwin
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Sitting on the bank of river fishing and talking to a long time friend and tribal woman Katie, Mary Groves was asked a simple question. “Missus, this bush country, him belonga me fella. What that country like belonga you fella when you been piccaninny?

A recent tragedy on the station where Mary Groves, husband Joe and the family were living wherein a number of family friends had been killed in an air accident left Mary bereft, beyond comfort. With this simple question she realised what a lot of her life had been lived, the contrast to her early upbringing in the suburbs of Melbourne and so decided to write the story of what is and was, a remarkable life.

With the gentle prompting of Katie she started to unfold her story and in doing so found the grief she was feeling came to fade and the healing comfort of sharing a journey was to become the beginning of the rest of her life.

 Leaving Melbourne as a young girl Mary and her very large family moved to the outback town of Mataranka. This began a lifetime love affair with the outback and its people

 Meeting and marrying husband Joe, drover, rodeo rider and in time station manager Mary and her young family moved across the Top End of Australia, learning to come to terms with the highs and lows that can only be experienced by life in remote locations.

 As you turn the pages you become one with Mary, her hopes, doubts, laughter and love in this very warm, very real look at 40 years spent facing up to the odds and doing what ever it takes to take on the challenges of living and loving in the Top End.

Warm, uplifting and encouraging this is indeed a true and very personal look at the life of one woman and how she overcame the odds and learned from a life well lived.

 

Biographies, Non Fiction