When
writing "Blood and Ink", I went down two paths for research. The
first path, involved more expected research tools, like memoirs and historical
records. The second resource I used, much less removed and scholarly, was my
mother's memories of her own childhood of poverty and displacement.
Stories
of displacement and itinerant populations are already part of the
post-settlement history of Western Australia. I read some of the transcribed
oral histories of women affected by social upheaval and loss recorded in Nothing to Spare, all contributed by
women who were born from 1890 onwards (Carter ix). Their stories of hardship and
endurance, of the children they raised and then lost in the Great War, are
personal stories, fragments of a larger past. The Stockrider's Daughter in Nothing to Spare describes being
forcibly moved from Carrolup settlement to Moore River settlement.
She says, "They
had kerosene buckets with tea in it and they'd brought boxes of bread"
(cited in Carter 1981, 25).
My mother was born in the Great Depression and lived
through World War Two in England. Her childhood was one of poverty and upheaval.
Her stories of ingenuity and compromise influenced how I wrote Annie and her
family in "Blood and Ink". My mother was always very fond of mashed
banana sandwiches (a British delicacy that possibly no other country has
adapted). When she was a child, there were no bananas, due to food rationing,
so "mashed banana" sandwiches were made by boiling and finely mashing
parsnips, then adding sugar and yellow colouring. My mother assured me the
sandwiches were delicious, particularly at birthday parties. This story from
her gave me a window into Annie's world.
The Stockrider's Daughter's story of forced migration
is is generations old now. My mother's story is not. Writing Annie and her
family, and the world of "Blood and Ink", was based in part on these
stories, of making do and being hungry.
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