Memories

Chapter 1 When It all Began

I sat there under the great gum tree, my mum there next to me. We were just sitting there looking out across the land as the sun rose.

Back then I was about thirteen years old and I didn't know it at the moment but my life was about to change.

I looked over to my Mum, she was so beautiful, her long black hair, shining in the reflection of the rising sun. Her hair was much prettier than mine, my hair was short and curly, my Mum said that it looked like her mum's hair.

I never met my Nanna, she had died before I was born, but I hear stories about her all the time from my two older brothers. They say that she was extremely kind and her purse always had a stash of lollies that she would give out, she was quite a plump woman, they always joke that she was trying to become the witch from that white bloke story Hansel and Gretel.

My oldest brother, his name is Sam, but we call him Sammy, he his 50 now, but back then he was only 20, he was an amazing big brother, he was kind and loving but also had his moments of being a normal annoying big brother.

My other brother, his name is James, he was always up to trouble with the law, that's why him and dad were always fighting, and as dad would say, 'we can't just be your safety net James, you need to stop getting in trouble like this, I won't alway be able to just bail you out of jail everytime'. This usually just made James do it more, so he could prove his point.

My Dad was a hard working man, but people would never hire him for a job he was actually good at, probably because we were black but he never complained. he just said, 'as long as I can afford to put food on the table and have a beer with his supper, he would put up with anything' so he usually just worked as a brick layer.

My mum on the other hand had a great eye for fashion, so she made her own small business making clothes from the dinning table.

We tried to fit in with the fast changing world, but no matter how hard we tried they still took my brothers and I away from what we knew.