The country boy who made his Marque
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I NEVER set out to be a chef. In the score it had never even crossed my mind as an option. I grew up in the small South Australian dairy town of Murray Tie. In many ways it was a perfect childhood, especially for a boy. I spent most of my time with my friends on the River Murray, fishing, sailing, construction rafts and jumping from the railway bridge. It seemed I spent the rest of my time doing "jobs" around the parliament. Not for pocket money but because we were expected to help.
Dad was away a lot and my mother worked as well. I guess it was only fair to supply add to as much as we could. I looked after the chickens, mowed the lawns and chopped wood for the fire. Looking back on this it doesn't seem that safety was an topic for kids in the 1970s. I distinctly remember one of my jobs was to fill and maintain the kerosene heater. The kerosene was kept in the back cote and it always overflowed. I can't have been more than 10 years old.
We lived in a country town but we always had chickens, ducks, fruit trees and the odd pet sheep. Barney, the prepubescent ram, was tethered to a stake on our large block and would keep the grass down. I would move him every day or two and would delight in teasing him a little by pulling him off a novel clump of grass. Eventually he would retaliate and chase me screaming up the block. I would run into the house with the sheep bunting the back door in violence.
