Lighthouse Girl – Page 2

Books for Royal Babies

Albany received royal visitors on the weekend. My husband, Peter Watson MLA and I were honoured to join The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall at the Albany Heritage Park on a very warm spring day. Pete shook the royal hands and was in good company with veterans, Murray Maxton and Harold Martin, as well as his ex-ABC colleague, Freeman of the City Annette Knight. I also spotted an excited ‘Granny Grommet’ who’d arrived early to meet the Prince. And there was more ‘Granny Grommet excitement to follow…

Albany Children’s Librarian, Dora Adeline was invited to travel to Perth to meet The Duchess of Cornwall with the WA Family Literacy Better Beginnings Team at The State Library. This celebration of early literacy was a perfect opportunity for Dora to present HRH with books by local authors. I was honoured that Dora took a copy of Granny Grommet and Me as well as Gabriel Evans’ new Christmas title The Mice and the Shoemaker.

Lockie Cameron from Paperbark Merchants, Dora and Dianne

Inscription for the royal babes

Dora Adeline presents ‘Granny Grommet and Me’ to HRH

It was fun inscribing a book to ‘the royal babies and their family’ and I hope Prince George and Princess Charlotte enjoy reading about grannies surfing on the south coast of Western Australia. It may even inspire Their Royal Highnesses to grab a boogie board and head down to Brighton…

Before I heard that Dora would be presenting Granny Grommet and Me, I had already arranged to add copies of Lighthouse Girl and Light Horse Boy to the selection of Albany gifts that would accompany Their Royal Highnesses home. The Royals seemed to enjoy walking through the avenue of first AIF ship names and the view of King George Sound and Breaksea Island was beautiful on Saturday, so perhaps the story of a young girl waving to the departing soldiers, nurses and horses in 1914 will be a fitting memory of their day in Western Australia.

Thank you to Hamish and Lockie Cameron from Paperbark Merchants for donating a book and to Dora Adeline and The State Library for supporting WA authors.

Back to Breaksea Island – after 9 years…

It’s been nine years since I visited Breaksea Island in the very early days of my research for Lighthouse Girl. So much has happened since then…

When I last went out, the only way onto the island was via a swing ladder, then a hike from the jetty up to the lighthouse and cottages (just like Fay would have done to meet the monthly supply boat). Back in 2006, very little was known about Fay’s early life, but going to the island gave me a strong feeling for how things ‘might’ have been when she signalled to departing troops in 1914. After that first research trip, Lighthouse Girl took another three years to research and write.

Now there is a helicopter service to Breaksea, which makes things much easier! I was excited to go back to Breaksea with the team from Channel 9’s Destination WA to film a segment that will go to air on Sunday 16th April at 5.30pm on WIN and Channel 9 with presenter Tod Johnston.

The Albany weather was at its wild and woolly best. I didn’t think we’d be able to fly, but pilot Rainor of Skyhook Helicopters has nerves of steel. He is an amazing pilot. After multiple flybys of the helipad; which gave us great views of the cottages and lighthouse, Rainor decided it was safer to put us down on a granite slab further down the island.

The following clip shows how windy it was when we arrived. Forty knots plus.

We walked up the hill to the lighthouse, battling the wind to explore the ruin of the original lighthouse and the sturdy second lighthouse (now solar powered). After taking lots of photographs, fighting wind and rain to do an interview, we went down the hill to the restored lighthouse keeper’s cottages.

When I was at Breaksea in 2006 we camped overnight. I slept in a swag in the far room of the far cottage. I’ll probably never know which house Fay and her father lived in, but as I lay there listening to birds squawking in their burrows at night, I had such a strong sense of Fay having a link to the room I slept in. I had the same feeling this time.

I loved being in the cottage which might have been Fay’s, looking out the windows to views of Bald Head and the wild Southern Ocean, imagining again how her life might have been. Thanks to Keir Tunbridge for the photo of me in that room.

And also for this one of me and the lighthouse.

Thanks also to the intrepid team from Guru Productions for organising the trip. I can’t wait to see the complete story on Destination WA.

Lighthouse Girl on ABC radio

Lighthouse Girl cover Earlier this week I spoke with Andrew Collins on ABC Great Southern about my book Lighthouse Girl.

You can hear the interview at the ABC Great Southern website.

Thanks Andrew for a fun interview!

Pre-Bookweek fun at Parklands Primary

Parklands Primary love books and reading! Here are Year 4 students; Azya and Phoenix showing fabulous artwork from their Year 2 Lighthouse Girl project with their teacher, Margaret Sefton. They researched lighthouses around the world, wrote imaginative stories and much more…