#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 51 Winter

 #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.