“Growing up was a happy time. I was born here, my Dad was born here, and just a really good childhood. We lived in the main street, the two-storey house where Amadios have their wine bar. That was our house. The building has a painting of our family on the side of it. It pictures what businesses had been in there over time, a butcher shop, a café, a photography shop, a fruit and veg shop and Fred and Fleur’s gallery. We used to live upstairs while business happened downstairs. I am one of the blonde girls in the green school uniform weighing potatoes and helping my sister. The painting also shows the tragic story of my great-grandmother who died when I was about two or three years old. Her two sons didn’t return from fishing and she went looking for them, ended up falling off the jetty accidentally, drowned and got washed up three days later. There is so much history in that house. It was built for my great-grandparents and we lived there and we had lots of great memories growing up there.
We were by the beach every day, went to the playground every day. I had four sisters; it was beautiful. My oldest sister Debra had a CB radio – like UHF that truckies have – she bought one when she was 16 or 17.
Mum would take us up on the top of the hill where the monument is and you could get really good signal up there. We used to talk to people all around the world. Debra used to talk to these fellas in Yankalilla. Peter was one of them. There was a group of them and they all played cricket and came over here. When they came here, they decided to meet Debra, who they spoke with on the radio. So, we met. Internet Dating really, online dating … didn’t know him from a bar of soap but met him and thought ‘Hmm’. It was really amazing. Then of course we just got together, liked each other. He would fly over here on the weekend and stay. He played cricket for Great Southern and they came over to play against Kangaroo Island teams. I wasn’t really into cricket but I went to meet these boys. That’s what you do when you’re 16 or whatever. Then we kind of just hit it off and he decided to come over here to live. I was married at 19. Everyone said to me, you shouldn’t get married at 19, you are far too young. ‘You should travel the world’ they said. And I said ‘can’t you travel with a husband?’ It was normal back then. But if my daughter had come to me at 19, and said ‘I’m getting married’, I would have said ‘no, you’re not.’ Times have changed, things are different. She would have still done it. Life changes and you change with it. I knew. He was just really good. Peter has probably been one of my biggest influences. He is very level-headed, calm, wonderful person who I still live with and love. It’s true. We are very lucky to still love each other. We are very blessed to have been that lucky 41 years later.”
