There and Back and Back Again

I was brought up in a land where you could smell the heat in your nostrils, where the air resounded with the sound of the cicadas, first one chittering sound and then joined by thousands drumming out their beat. The crickets "crick crick" chirruping, grasshoppers, iridescent beetles whirling by. The sky was hot and blue, sometimes with a morning mist that would be burnt off by the fierce sun.

We ran barefoot, sometimes catching a cicada, bright green with their three glowing spots between their wide spaced eyes. On our front wall tiny skinks would run or sun themselves and sometimes Mum would catch a baby one, not much more than an inch long, bright eyes and beating heart.

Born in Australia in 1945, descended from English and Chinese, I spent my life living there and in the UK and travelled there and back and back again. My family were amongst the ten pound poms.

Published with the help of Alun Buffry and ABeFreePublishing: http: //www.buffry.org.uk/abefreepublishing.html