early years: 1970's

Reflection

Gerard itself was a lesson in community long before I had any language for it. Families knew each other’s business, and the connections between people ran deeper than anything I’d seen in town. Life out there simply felt different – and once again I was both part of it and slightly on the edge of it.

It was also where I first realised that schools carried their own reputations – sporty schools, rough schools, academic schools. I wasn’t particularly academic, and while I liked sport, I didn’t drop neatly into any of the usual boxes.

I kept carrying that uneasy sense of being between places: part Gerard, part Riverland town, but not quite one of the kids who’d lived in the same house on the same street all their lives.

Looking back, moving to Port Augusta after that was both a personal and cultural shock.