There is an image from Ethel Turner’s 1894 Australian children’s classic novel, Seven Little Australians, that has stayed with me for more than 50 years. Judy Woolcot, third of the seven children, in a stained and torn pink overdress and a battered straw hat, slicing the air and bits of her dress with a grass scythe that is almost as long as she is tall.
Judy, 13, is cutting the grass in an effort to please her father, who watches with growing trepidation from the side verandah of the family home. Appeasing Father is a regular activity for Judy and her siblings. In this instance, it comes after Judy has led the children in an invasion of an adult dinner party, seeking roast fowl instead of their unsatisfactory tea of bread and butter.
