Читать книгу From Orchards to Outback - Tracey Friday - Страница 6

Monday’s child is fair of face,

Tuesday’s child is full of grace,

Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

Thursday’s child has far to go,

Friday’s child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s child works hard for a living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

- Rhyme first recorded in A. E. Bray’s

Traditions of Devonshire, 1838

Maggie Harris is Thursday’s Child, and as the rhyme goes, she has travelled far. Far indeed from the English country village where she had grown up during WWII and now, after four long and often turbulent weeks at sea, she has finally arrived in Fremantle, on Monday January 5, 1959.

Ever since she was five years old she had been fascinated with the koala four-penny stamp that was given to her by the village postmaster. It became her talisman and carried her through many adversities as she pursued her dream.

The stamp had come on a letter from the postmaster’s family in Western Australia. Over the years, Maggie had been corresponding with the family at McKinnley Sheep Station and they had invited her to train as their new jillaroo.

Now, at aged twenty two, she has left the apple orchards of her home in England and is apprehensively excited and eager to begin her new life in the Australian outback.