Finding Father

Well, that was the crux of the matter I suppose. Finding him Would probably caus a lot of changes in my thinking and how I saw myself was a private thought. Well, maybe, I mean, I already had a father, or so I thought for I had carried his name for years, and I loved him. A wonderful New Zealander. I was his shiralee; we did everything to gether during my growing up and teenage years in the bush and goldfields towns. As the eldest of a large family of eight, helping to provide for their necessary sustenance of life was my lot with my er...step-father.
But curiosity got the better of me when in my teens and I discovered that another father was around. Friends urged me to contact him at the time. Not on your Nellie was my outraged rejoinder. I thought about it though. Mind you, it took a few more years for me to pluck up the courage to contact him, so I was a young married woman when I decided to give it a whirl, for I wondered what my other father was like.
So what could I do? Now I am talking about a pretty famous man here at the time. I mean, he was always on the news and that with his books that he had written. It was a bit of a challenge really. Well, I guess i would write him a letter, though I didn't have an address. A challenge to think about but finally I upped and wrote. To this day I cannot remember what I had written on that blank page of a writing pad. Another challenge to think about then reared its head, which took me a couple of months before I decided what to do. This was his address. Well, if he was famous, everyone should know where he lived I reasoned with myself. So I addressed the envelope with his name, included in brackets the title of his best selling book, and sent it to the city where I knew his home was.
It was about three months later that a reply finally arrived, well and truly after I had given up hope of hearing anything from him. He was up on South Molle Island in Queensland, collecting data for his next book. My newly-found step-mother wrote me telling me that. This was followed swiftly by his delightful letter. He was pleased to hear from me.
Changes in my life? Oh yeah. I know had two fathers; the newer father was to teach me what I could really accomplish if I set my mind to it, which in turn was backed up by the other father who was happy for me. And I learned to love my new father too. What more could I want in life? Both are gone now and I miss them. A writer and author I inherited from one father, my bush life and a love of the bush I inherited from the other. Combining the two brings out the poet and author in me. That was the result of finding Father. The photo above was taken when I first met him after I had found him. It was September 1966 and he was in Perth for the Premier of the movie They're A Weird Mob, which was based on the book he had written with the same name. his name was John Patrick o'Grady