Description
Nell’s favourite saying was “They’ll have to do something about it.”
When her husband walked out on her just after returning from being a prisoner of war, leaving her with two young boys, with no home and no money, Nell soon realised she was the one to have to do something about it.
Absolutely desperate, she moved the family to Dunolly, an old gold mining town in central Victoria. The only abode available was a shack built during the depression years out of bush timbers, corrugated iron and flattened kerosene drums, with dirt floors, no electricity, no running water, hessian bags hung on nails for curtains, and riddled with mice.
The old African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child. For this family, Dunolly became that village. With the older boy, the village failed. Aged nine, he was wrongly blamed for the burning down of a hayshed, but guilty of petty thieving from his aunt’s house, resulting in him being made a State Ward and removed to a home in Melbourne for six years.
This left Billy, then aged six, who became Nell’s sole focus. Despite living in abject poverty, suffering frequent beltings and emotional deprivation, Billy managed to keep out of trouble and did well at school. While at High School, he took days off school to work at several jobs which gave him some financial independence and a burning ambition to become a teacher.
The village had done its job, but would people outside the town foil his ambition?
Specifications:
Publisher: Self-published
Year: 2024
Format: Paperback
Pages: 300pp
ISBN: 9781763618800
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