#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 51
Winter
There aren’t many places in Australia where it snows enough
to build a snowman. When I was a child
in Glen Innes, on the New England Range in NSW, it often snowed in the winter,
but usually it was a sleety dusting which passed quickly.
One night, in the winter of 1958, it really snowed.
The next morning must have been a Saturday as our parents
were still in bed and called us to come into their room, which faced our front
garden. “Look out of the window,” they
said, thinking that we would see the lawn covered in snow.
We opened the curtains.
There, looking in on us, was a snowman, complete with hat, scarf and
pipe.
The teenagers who lived next door had built it in the night
as a surprise for us.
Here we are later in the morning as the snow is beginning to
melt. Rugged up against the cold I am here
with my sisters and brother, three of the neighbourhood kids and Lillah Smith, one
of the builders of the snowman.
