I was 10 when we moved to Lake Boga it was the year of the 1956 Olympic games and as kids we were a bit overawed with it all. I could remember only living in country areas and this was the first time we lived in a "town" I thought it was really something, I still remember clearly how I wanted to dress up because we were in a "town" not to matter that the "town" had about 300 residents!

Our house was by the train tracks and as kids we used to love to put a penny on the tracks and wait for the train to come and squash it flat, sometimes it would stick to the wheel for a few turns, sometimes we never found it again.

There were not many hills where we lived, but the town water supply was at the top a small hill about 2 miles from the house, on the top were also a copse of Peppercorn trees, my sis and I would climb to the top and they were big, and swing down through the branches like tarzan, scratched all over by enormous fun.

When I was 19 I moved to Melbourne to live with a girlfriend and her family, I left on the last steam train, after that they were diesel, I loved steam trains and I still do, there was something romantic about steam.