| BACK |
Andi and Annie
After leaving school in 1968 I moved into a group apartment and had a variety of jobs to make ends meet. These were days filled with listening to music, meeting people and going up to the Wello on Friday nights to drink and talk with friends. How callow we were then. Coming up to my 20th birthday I was faced with the dilema of having to register of national service and the possiblity of being sent to fight a war in Vietnam. You will remember back then that you didn't get to vote until you reached 21 years old but you were expected to be called up for national service and be sent to fight overseas.
My marble didn't come up, so the next thing I remember was organising myself to follow the hippy route to Europe. Just before I was about to leave I met someone. I only made it to Darwin before turning back. Big mistake as our relationship didn't last for very long after my return. I then met up with a group of people who were attending the Canberra College of Advanced Education. The four of us found a house out at Gundaroo and lived there from about 1971 to 1975. These same people have remained life long friends ever since.
I found a job at CSIRO in Plant Industry as a techician and life was pretty good. I met Johanne and bought my first house way out in the new frontiers of Kambah. It was a big contrast to living in Gundaroo. The neighbours didn't quite know what to make of us with our hugh vegie garden and chooks. After a couple of years we sold Kambah and bought a house in Hargraves Cres Ainslie, which suited our lifestyle a lot better. Escaped chooks and even goats and the occasional horse seem more the norm living around Corroberee Park.
After a number of years our marriage broke up and I met Annie, my long term partner. We continued to live in Ainslie and have a son who is now 26 years old. By this stage I had
completed a horticultural certificate at Weston, and moved into the biological control of weeds section at CSIRO Entomology. I was lucky enough to be involved in an exchange at a French laboratory in Montpellier for a couple of years. This was a great experience for me and we frequently return to France to visit friends.
To make a long story short, I took early retirement from CSIRO in 2005, and am presently living in Ulladulla on the NSW south coast. In between travelling I spend much time in the vegie garden, making cheese and beer and try to be as reclusive as I can.