Hector Holthouse

S'pose I Die is not for everyone - it is a biography set in the Atherton Tablelands about the Maunsell family. So it is a story of pioneer stock and it is very much a white woman's story and perhaps in this day and age not very politically correct. But the world is made up of different views and I think it is so important to remind ourselves of what older generations went through just to live from day to day....this woman faced everything. Queensland is not for the faint-hearted and she saw it all....survived unbearable heat, cyclones, snakes of all shapes and sizes, spiders, rats, cane toads, green ants, stinging nettles and of course humankind in all its glory...not to mention a couple of world wars. Note to self - stop complaining about housework.

To a degree the book is a series of anecdotes - I will be trying out pawpaw flavoured with sherry to be sure....I thought this was the most poignant paragraph...

"The Boss (this is what everyone called the narrator's husband and she refers to him frequently in this way) must have thought I looked upset when I said good-bye to him, because he came back and found me crying. I was ashamed to have been caught, because I knew there was nothing he could do about it. The cattle had to be worked. But he comforted me and tried to explain things. Then he said if I could stick it out in the bush for ten years he would take me back to England to see my family again." Imagine if you said that to a young wife today!! Ten years!!!!!… (meer)