WEST AUSTRALIANA

  Pat Malcolm has been a battler all her life. She was born during the Depression, one of fifteen children in a poor, rural, working-class family who ‘begged, borrowed and stole’ to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. It was a childhood of innocent fun and wild adventure, and of deprivation, physical abuse and humiliation. At fourteen Pat Malcolm’s childhood ended and her adult life began. In the next fifteen years she worked in various nursing and domestic jobs, had five children and survived nine years in a violent relationship. Then in the early sixties, she headed north with the mineral boom and began a love affair with the great North-west. She worked on fishing boats and mine sites, in stock-camps and hotels. She had two more children, made life-long friends, and spent six months in gaol before receiving a pardon from the Governor-General. 

• 135 p. ; 21 cm. #081123
• Single mothers — Western Australia — Biography
• Abused wives — Western Australia — Biography
• Women — Western Australia — Social conditions