Jeanie Crago grew up in the Western Australian outback. It was a life that some might describe as hard, but Crago doesn’t see it that way. She spent many years travelling and living in a caravan, going wherever her father, a fencing contractor, had work.
The family – Mum, Dad, Jeanie and her four brothers and sisters – lived a simple life. No television, no running water, often no electricity and school by correspondence, supervised by their mother or an occasional untrained nanny. While lacking the comforts that many Aussies take for granted, the children grew up in an envitronment where they were free to explore, to discover their country and themselves.
In A Look Over the Edge, Crago shares her experiences from childhood up to her years as a young adult working a gold mining lease with her father and other family members. She shares the highs and lows of her life – including losing her brother Tom, when he was just thirteen – with an honesty and enthusiasm that is refreshing. For those who know Western Australia this book is a treat with opportunity for revisiting the sixties, seventies and eighties in this vast state. For those who don’t know it, it is enlightening, and may awaken the travel bug.
Likely to appeal to those with a love of autobiography.
A Look Over the edge, by Jeanie Crago
Hesperian Press, 2001
Available from the author at her website, Aussie Outback Books