Mum’s memoirs of her life growing up in Western Australia during the 1930s, 40s, and the beginning of the 50s.

Cover illustration: Mihaela
Cover layout: Neil Hague

Printed in Australia, U.K., U.S.A., & Italy.

Available from good bookshops everywhere.

ISBN: 9780955041747

Please use independent bookshops.

U.K. Blackwells

The Amazon links are for information purposes.

U.K.   Amazon

U.S.A.  Amazon

Back cover text:

Yvonne Roberts was born a fourth generation Western Australian and a sixth generation Australian. Her maternal forebears were the Forrests, who hailed  from Scotland, arriving at Australind in 1842; a family that
has had a remarkable influence on the progress and fortunes of the State.

In contrast, on her father’s side, the first Australian was a teenage female convict from Devon, who embarked in 1807. She too however, prospered…
for a while, at least.

Both sides of Yvonne’s family were tight, and both enjoyed the watchfulness of great matriarchs: Minna on the Forrest side, and Nellie, on the Roberts’. Yvonne’s far-flung family were just like the iconic Australians of lore and film, pot-less, tough, practical, reliable, and
down-to-earth; stubbornly self-reliant, they made do and mended, but they were always quick to help each other out when necessary.

This then was the environment that Yvonne was born into, and grew up in. It was a world full of characters, of friends, laughter, tears, and tyrants…and yes, always the looming maul of poverty…

…and then came her teenage years. Unchained from the severity and austerity of 1940s convent education, loosed from the death-watch clock of the office, Yvonne danced her way out of the shadows of grinding
greyness sparkling in the new dresses she deftly rejuvenated from materials that had had other  lives…and yes, she was a beauty – and still is.

The title of this book derives from an overheard comment by a couple of young lads as she walked by them in Bunbury.

Mum was always a fast walker; she’s also very talented, she’s smart, she’s feisty, and she’s fun.

That’s our mum!

 

Yvonne took her leave for the Otherworld on 13th February 2017. Her ashes were scattered on the graves of her beloved grandparents’, Thomas and Nellie Roberts, at Wooroloo Cemetery.

Her twilight years were amongst her happiest where she spent her days in the garden watching the birds and the world go by, loved and known by those around her as ‘the Queen’ and ‘Princess’, and visited daily by her many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was, and is, a marvel and an ever-present inspiration.

We decided not to publicise her book when it was first published because her teenage romance with Rolf Harris might have been picked up by the press.

Love you Mum.

Thank you for being ours.