And Be Home Before Dark: A Childhood on the Edge of Nowhere by Roland Rocchiccioli

And Be Home Before Dark: A Childhood on the Edge of Nowhere by Roland Rocchiccioli

Home/Store/Subjects/Western Australian History/Goldfields Esperance Region
SKU TBM9781740665513
AU$30.00
Out of Stock
Out of Stock
Product Details
Book Type: SECONDHAND
ISBN: 9781740665513
Author: Roland Rocchiccioli
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Hardei Grant Books
Place: Melbourne VIC
Year: 2008
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320 pages
Period: 20th Century

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Pages have sunned.

My mother was born in Laverton, the wildest town in the west. At one time it was claimed the only person buried in the cemetery who died of natural causes was a six-week-old baby. I was born in Agnew, a shanty gold-mining town on the edge of the remote and inhospitable Great Victoria Desert, population 200. But it was in Gwalia where our story started to resemble anything; Gwalia, where the Sons of Gwalia mine, with its huge black smokestack belching into the cloudless blue sky, kept vigil over all of us misfits, migrants and malcontents.

The north-eastern goldfields of Western Australia gathered in all manner of exiles from across the globe: Italians, Yugoslavs, Britons; criminals, ex-servicemen, drunks, journeymen; those wanting to keep their heads down and those determined to hold them high. They found both a fresh start and an abyss, where troubles underground were brought up to the surface and played out in the dusty streets.

Roland Rocchiccioli spent his childhood watching the dramas of the town unfold: the pit ponies that lived in the mines and went blind when they resurfaced, the men who lay in the bushes outside his house, waiting to jump his stepfather, and the women who dispensed advice on ‘the polio' with their cheese and lettuce sandwiches.

He saw the population of crickets take over their chook house, the priest who wouldn't dance with women in public but bedded half the town in private, and the mother who refused to toe the line of 1950s Australia.

In And Be Home Before Dark, his confronting, revealing and frequently hilarious memoir, Roland recounts his formative years in the tough goldfields town, bringing to life his cantankerous mother, Beria, her husband, Ginger, and Slavic lover, Steve, along with an unforgettable cast of rogues and renegades. (publisher blurb)

Show More
Share this product with your friends
ShareSharePin it
And Be Home Before Dark: A Childhood on the Edge of Nowhere by Roland Rocchiccioli
Home/Store/Subjects/Western Australian History/Goldfields Esperance Region
You May Also Like
Mullock, Mulga and Memories: Tales of Gwalia and Leonora by Kennedy Williams
Mullock, Mulga and Memories: Tales of Gwalia and Leonora by Kennedy Williams
Mullock, Mulga and Memories: Tales of Gwalia and Leonora by Kennedy Williams
AU$22.00
Out of Place: Gwalia: Occasional Essays on Australian Regional Communities and Built Environments in Transition edited by Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully, William M Taylor
Out of Place: Gwalia: Occasional Essays on Australian Regional Communities and Built Environments in Transition edited by Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully, William M Taylor
Out of Place: Gwalia: Occasional Essays on Australian Regional Communities and Built Environments in Transition edited by Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully, William M Taylor
AU$23.50
110 Degrees in the Waterbag: A History of Life, Work and Leisure in Leonora, Gwalia and the Northern Goldfields edited by Lenore Layman and Criena Fitzgerald
110 Degrees in the Waterbag: A History of Life, Work and Leisure in Leonora, Gwalia and the Northern Goldfields edited by Lenore Layman and Criena Fitzgerald
110 Degrees in the Waterbag: A History of Life, Work and Leisure in Leonora, Gwalia and the Northern Goldfields edited by Lenore Layman and Criena Fitzgerald
AU$36.00
  • Search Books
  • Favorites
  • Shopping Bag
  • Gift Cards
Display prices in:AUD
Skip to main content
Book Merchant Bookstore
Menu
Storefront
Subjects
Rewards
About
Happy Readers
Contact
Acknowledgement

© 2022 Book Merchant Bookstore 14 Thetis Link Dalyellup Bunbury Western Australia 6230

Terms & ConditionsPrivacy PolicyShipping & Payment InfoReturn PolicyAbout UsCookie settingsReport abuse
Made with Ecwid by Lightspeed