Kitty Crossingham was born in London in the room upstairs over her parents' grocery shop. Her father had been a farrier, and people still called him "squire" and came to him for advice, medical or otherwise. She realizes that farriers in those days were given the kind of respect later given to doctors.
Kitty grew up with the feeling of being different, partly because the girl who looked after her while her mother was in the shop taught her to speak properly. This got her into trouble with her classmates, and she had to learn to talk cockney. "It's not window, its winder, " they said. "You don' 'alf talk funny, you do". And later a girl who had been in her class said, "Oh yer, I remember you. You're the one who couldn't never swear proper."
Kitty's sweetheart, her "best mate" since 1935, was recruited in April 1939, and they were married on his 21st birthday in December 1939. He was taken prisoner in May of the next year, and was a prisoner of war for 5½ years. Their son was born in October 1940, and a daughter in 1946. They migrated to Australia in 1949 and loved it here. Together they built a house, living in a caravan for 5 years at the start. Kitty studied and became a teacher, teaching Prep until 1981 except for a year they took off to travel overseas (Fiji, Hawaii, America and England) and around Australia in a little van.
Kitty was widowed in 1997. Her son was killed in an accident in 1971, but her daughter and grand-daughter live in Adelaide. Her story 'Looking Over My Shoulder' won a prize in the ANZ Bank competition, April, 1982, and 'Where There's a Will' won the News Review short story competition in the same year. Her 'Farm Story' was read in 'Swag o' Yarns' on the ABC in March 1995.
