Sidharta Books & Print

My parents had four daughters, then came the great day I was born, a son. My father, as I was told later by my beloved Mother and older siblings, was very, very proud, happy and excited all at once. His first son and heir. Dad was a merchant seaman around about this time, so I am led to believe, and he sent me gifts and postcards from various destinations around the world. It would be years before my young sister was born. Unfortunately, she died an untimely death at only four months old with meningitis, which was a common sickness in those days. I vaguely remember seeing her small white coffin in our lounge room for family and friends to pay their last respects, which is a custom in Scotland. My Dad had left the Merchant Navy by this time and shortly after my dear young sister died, Mother fell pregnant again. This time another boy was born, Robert, named after one of my Father's brothers. Robert was only eight months old when Dad died and I would have been about six years old. Although my Father showed me a lot of love and affection, I was too young to appreciate his love for me. Had my Father lived, there is no doubt in my heart's mind that he would have helped me and would have understood the terrible secret I had to cope with during my adolescence. I may have never left home at sixteen and emigrated to Australia. At seventeen, my life may have been so much different, and who would know that a chance meeting at eighteen in a hotel in Sydney would change my life forever.