Gunnedah's book worms had the chance to hear from Australian author Patsy Kemp on Monday when she visited Gunnedah Shire Library.
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Here, she explained her recently released book The Drover's Daughter, which looks back on the first 15 years of Kemp's life and the adventures she experienced as the daughter of a sheep and cattle drover.
"A lot of people know about drovers, and their lifestyle is folklore, but little is known about the life of the women and children of drovers," she said.
As a baby, her cradle was the dog crate underneath the horse drawn wagonette, or the unused saddle, when the dogs needed their crate.
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At the time she had no idea that it wasn't the norm to in live in a wagonette, and later, a truck, with eight other family members, go to the toilet behind a tree, or to cook food in a shovel over a campfire.
Throughout the book's pages, Kemp is brutally honest about the hardship her family endured and tells her story 'warts and all'.
She said during the years of traversing the western NSW and southern Queensland countryside, the closest she got to Gunnedah was a stop in Boggabri.
Now living in Toowoomba, the author regularly attends the annual Boggabri Drover's Campfire, and is hoping to do a talk at next year's event.
On her book tour, she has stopped in numerous areas of the region including Armidale, Wee Waa, Narrabri, Coonabarabran, Tenterfield and more. Gunnedah was her last stop, and she will now head home to Toowoomba.
The Drover's Daughter is now available to borrow from Gunnedah Shire Library.