'Renowned historian Jill Roe, whose grandparents were early settlers of South Australia's west coast, revisits her mid-century childhood in what was one of Australia's most remote regions.
'Rhythms of work and play were punctuated by moments - the annual show, a visit from young Queen Elizabeth - that connected farming lives, however briefly, to a changing world.
'With urbanisation comes uncertainties. As her story unfolds, Jill Roe contemplates the future of Eyre Peninsula and the role of regional Australia in this young century. Our Fathers Cleared the Bush is a charming, thoughtful blend of history, memoir and ideas.' (Publication summary)
(Introduction)
'Simone de Beauvoir noted that you don’t often make new friends after age 60. But Jill and I enjoyed what you could call a late friendship. Jill came to the ANU as a visitor after she retired in 2003 and we immediately fell into an easy friendship. We were born just a year apart – Jill in 1940 and me a year later. We were both country girls, Jill a farm girl from Eyre Peninsula and me a small-town girl from southern Queensland. We had both fled rural life in the late 1950s and been the first in our families to go to university in the early 1960s. When Jill was writing her final book, Our Fathers Cleared the Bush – her memoir of her childhood in that remote corner of South Australia – we found that we shared many experiences, despite the distance between South Australia and Queensland and their different histories.1 ' (Introduction)
'In 2005 I recorded an interview for the National Library of Australia with the historian Professor Emerita Jill Roe at Macquarie University, where she was a founding member of staff (NLA, Oral TRC 5383). In the interview, Roe engagingly recalled her childhood as a farmer’s daughter on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. In retirement Roe said she would revisit and write a history of Eyre Peninsula. This pleasing book is the result.' (Introduction)
'Our Fathers Cleared the Bush is a captivating combination of regional history and memoir.'
(Introduction)
'Our Fathers Cleared the Bush is a captivating combination of regional history and memoir.'
'In 2005 I recorded an interview for the National Library of Australia with the historian Professor Emerita Jill Roe at Macquarie University, where she was a founding member of staff (NLA, Oral TRC 5383). In the interview, Roe engagingly recalled her childhood as a farmer’s daughter on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. In retirement Roe said she would revisit and write a history of Eyre Peninsula. This pleasing book is the result.' (Introduction)
'Simone de Beauvoir noted that you don’t often make new friends after age 60. But Jill and I enjoyed what you could call a late friendship. Jill came to the ANU as a visitor after she retired in 2003 and we immediately fell into an easy friendship. We were born just a year apart – Jill in 1940 and me a year later. We were both country girls, Jill a farm girl from Eyre Peninsula and me a small-town girl from southern Queensland. We had both fled rural life in the late 1950s and been the first in our families to go to university in the early 1960s. When Jill was writing her final book, Our Fathers Cleared the Bush – her memoir of her childhood in that remote corner of South Australia – we found that we shared many experiences, despite the distance between South Australia and Queensland and their different histories.1 ' (Introduction)
