Early Childhood Memories
"Moving to Australia"
by Jamie Yates (11)

My Dad: Ray Yates

Ray Yates' early childhood memory: My clearest childhood memory, is moving to Australia in 1964 with my Mum, Dad and Brother, on a big ocean liner. I was Six years old at the time. Also I clearly remember life on an ocean liner, seeing dolphins, whales, using the ship's pool and going into dock. ''I thought it was great having loads of water around me and still having a swimming pool on the ship.'' When we went into dock in Tahiti we went in a glass bottomed boat, the glass distorted the distance between the boat and the sea-bed, the sea-bed looked about four metres away, but it was actually twenty! Australia was very different to England, there were sharks, poisonous spiders and snakes. All the houses were one story and the only time I used steps was when I was in a big city or town. In Australia there are two seasons; a rainy season and a dry season. In the rainy season the rain was sometimes warm. It was not uncommon to look at the hills and see a bush fire, there was one nearly every day. Budgerigars flew around like sparrows do in England. About Ray Yates's early childhood memory: Ray Yates is my Dad, He works with deaf people, teaching them gardening at Coombeshead college in Newton Abbot for two days a week. He was born in London and moved down to Devon seven years ago. He loves many types of music and walking. Ray Yates is 40 years years old now and was 6 years old at the time.