When I began writing professionally in the late 1980s, I always wrote about other people. Profiles, histories, travel stories, businesses.
Now, I have turned the spotlight on myself and have written my life story ‘Lost and Found’. It began with a question from my youngest grandsons who were doing a project at primary school. They knew I’d been born in England during the Second World War and they asked me what toys I had then. I could remember perfectly. The almost bald koala, the wooden sled, the cardboard dolly with cut out paper clothes. And I could remember the smell of the air raid shelter. What else? Quite a lot, as it happens. This gave me ‘Lost and Found’, its themes of searching and finding, the role of families and friends, the power of luck, the excitement of travel and a late-life romance.
It also let me explore my mid-life move to Bermagui, after living in inner-city Melbourne for most of my life. I have spent over 25 years here now, in this small and beautiful commercial fishing village on the far south coast of New South Wales.
Now, too, I have returned to my earlier career as a teacher/educator. I help others in Writing Workshops who want to record their lives in an autobiography or a special part of their lives as a memoir. More details here.
Now, I have turned the spotlight on myself and have written my life story ‘Lost and Found’. It began with a question from my youngest grandsons who were doing a project at primary school. They knew I’d been born in England during the Second World War and they asked me what toys I had then. I could remember perfectly. The almost bald koala, the wooden sled, the cardboard dolly with cut out paper clothes. And I could remember the smell of the air raid shelter. What else? Quite a lot, as it happens. This gave me ‘Lost and Found’, its themes of searching and finding, the role of families and friends, the power of luck, the excitement of travel and a late-life romance.
It also let me explore my mid-life move to Bermagui, after living in inner-city Melbourne for most of my life. I have spent over 25 years here now, in this small and beautiful commercial fishing village on the far south coast of New South Wales.
Now, too, I have returned to my earlier career as a teacher/educator. I help others in Writing Workshops who want to record their lives in an autobiography or a special part of their lives as a memoir. More details here.
‘How lovely to get your book! I can just hear you speaking as I read…'
Isobel Macdonald, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Isobel Macdonald, Isle of Skye, Scotland