GETTING my mum to sign a note from school always made me hold my breath.
Not because I had been in trouble that day and not because it contained any information that was particularly exciting, but because she would read them holding a red pen.
And instead of just having a quick glance and signing it at the bottom like most busy and uninterested parents, she would circle the spelling mistakes my teacher might have accidentally made.
She would then tell me to point out these said mistakes to my teacher the next morning, much to my extreme embarrassment.
When I remind her of this, she laughs.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but I’ve always been a spelling nut,” she said.
My mother is Peta West, a life-long devotee to the English language, addicted to the written word, an avid reader and a fan of a good yarn and a gutsy giggle, something I seem to have happily inherited.
Even though the past 36 years have been bursting at the seams with raising four children and running our family farm in the Wheatbelt, together with her husband (and my dad) Barry, Peta somehow found the time and energy for her other love, writing.
She earned her Diploma in Creative Writing amidst the chaos that only a family business and four rambunctious children can generate, and unbeknownst to anyone, began quietly working away on a private project, her memoir.
Fast forward 15 or so years to a special night in June, when Peta stood in front of a crowd of more than 70 people to officially launch her freshly published memoir, Nicci Was Here.
Essentially a loving tribute to her older sister, Peta sporadically began jotting down memories of her childhood shared with Nicci and their younger brother Clive, initially as a tool to remember the finer details of her early years before too much time passed.
“I never set out to write a book, but as time went on there were things I realised I didn’t want to forget,” Peta said.
“Memories with my sister are so precious to me because I only had such a short time with her, so as the years rolled on those memories became more important to record.
“Essentially, this book stemmed from losing Nicci when she was just 15 and it became a way of acknowledging my family’s loss.
“The title Nicci Was Here sums it up – she was here, she existed and she is part of me.”
The early years of Peta’s childhood began in the 1960s in Albany and for a time, drifted along the same course as many typical families of the era, until a series of events set off a chain reaction to irreversibly alter her family’s circumstances.
It eventually led her mother to head north with three children in tow, spending a brief stint at Three Springs before settling in sunny Geraldton.
Despite some rough patches, Peta described her childhood years in the 1960s and 70s as happily free-range, typical of her generation, where children were generally left to their own devices to create their own fun (read: mischief).
There’s plenty of moments throughout Nicci Was Here that induce a fit of giggles and many readers will be able to recognise a symmetry between their own childhood escapades among siblings and friends, heralding a certain ‘coming of age’ element.
While the humorous anecdotes scattered throughout the book are plentiful, there’s also a heartbreaking undercurrent of loss, in particular the type of loss that isn’t normally talked about, and that is the death of a sibling.
“Back in those days, death was never spoken about,” Peta said.
“After Nicci died, apart from within our own family, everyone just carried on like she’d never existed.
“I struggled with that.
“My brother and I never had a proper chance to say goodbye to Nic.
“Losing a sibling is a type of loss that’s not always acknowledged, but I was old enough to perceive a definite shift in dynamics, both within my family and at school.
“As a society we have come a long way with how we deal with losing someone we love, and that’s definitely been for the better.”
As to why Peta chose to publish her memoir now, she said she’s gained enough emotional distance from the events of her childhood to be able to share her story, in the hope it may also help others, young or old, in their bereavement.
“I wanted my own kids to know a bit about the aunty they were never able to meet and our childhood together, but to also help others in some small way, who may be dealing with loss,” she said.
“But I also wanted to share a snapshot of life back then, when kids were the definition of resilient and led a mostly carefree existence.”
