Free The Golden Land by Di Morrissey Page B

great-great-uncle.’
    â€˜I never knew him; he died long before I was born. Granny Flo told me some stories about him. They started to come back when I read the letter and saw some photos.’
    â€˜Where did he live? Did he have any family?’ asked Natalie.
    â€˜Don’t think so. He travelled a lot. I’ve got a couple of postcards from India, and from reading the letter it seems he was also in Burma.’
    â€˜In the Second World War?’ said Natalie.
    â€˜No, long before that. He was there between the wars, I’m pretty sure. I’ll have to sit down and go through everything to see if there’s anything else. I just skimmed them to sort them out.’
    â€˜Why was he in Burma? I mean, what kind of place was that?’ asked Natalie. ‘I don’t even know much about it now. It’s never in the news. No-one goes there. It’s communist, isn’t it? Like North Korea?’
    â€˜Military dictatorship. I think it’s where they locked up that lovely lady in her house to stop her being the leader or something. I’ll have to look it up,’ said Sarah.
    â€˜Yes, the pretty one who wears flowers in her hair,’ said Natalie. ‘But why would someone from our family have been in Burma in the 1920s or whenever it was?’
    â€˜Might be in the letters. I’m pretty sure he was born in England.’
    â€˜That’s right, Granny Florence was English, wasn’t she? How’d she end up out here?’
    â€˜Now that’s a story I do know. Granny Flo met my grandfather, Wally, when he was on leave in England during World War One. He fought on the Western Front. She told me that they met on Palace Pier in Brighton. He was this jaunty, cheeky Australian soldier and he swept her off her feet. He proposed and she came out to Australia on a ship to marry him. He became a soldier settler. The government gave the returned men blocks of land as a reward for fighting in the war. It was a bit of a lottery, evidently, because some of the blocks were useless, but Wally was lucky and got a good block of land on the Richmond River, up in this area, not far from where Steve’s family lived, and started dairy farming. Granny said they knew nothing about farming so they struggled for a bit. Things got worse during the Depression, but they managed to make a go of it and had a family. They sold their farm and retired just before things went bad again.’
    â€˜Why? What happened? It’s good dairy country out there,’ said Natalie.
    â€˜Mum said that when Britain moved into the Common Market and stopped giving preference to Australian dairy products, the milk and cheese market collapsed. Steve’s family was one of the few who hung on as dairy farmers. A lot of farmers went into beef cattle and much of the grazing land was turned into macadamia plantations.’
    â€˜Did Granny Flo ever go back to England?’
    â€˜I think she went back once. She talked about it and there are photos. I have no idea what relatives we have back there. I’m pretty sure that Great Uncle Andrew never married.’
    â€˜What was he doing in India and Burma?’ said Natalie.
    â€˜What did he do? We know nothing about our English side.’
    â€˜There’s a box of old photographs that look very Asian. Maybe that’s something to do with Andrew. I’ll let you know.’
    Natalie wondered when her mother was going to find time to browse through the photos with her impending move and settling into a new house, so she said impetuously, ‘Why don’t you send them to me? I can go through them when the children are in bed.’
    Sarah laughed. ‘I thought you spent your long lonely nights slaving away painting, sanding and pulling up old carpet. What are you up to now?’
    â€˜I’ve been painting the urns to go around the pool. I’d love to knock out some old cupboards but that’s too noisy while the kids are