About Me

About Me

My name is Fay Berry (O’Connor) and I was born on 28th November 1939 in Adelaide, South Australia. I am the youngest of four children and the only daughter of Jean Mavis O’Connor (Williams) and Maynard O’Connor, both born in Pinnaroo in the Murray Mallee. Two years ago, when I began to write this book, my initial intention was to tell my own story, the story of my life. It then occurred to me that before I wrote my own story I really should know something about my ancestors, about those who had preceded me, to establish a context to my life. I began to explore my roots, expecting the task to take me maybe a month or two but I soon discovered that it would take me a rather longer time than I had expected. I began to develop a ‘proper’ family tree using family tree building software. I built my family tree and that took me most of a year. By this time I was enthralled. I collected all the information I could find about the various notable individuals I found in my ‘family tree.’ The task seemed to just keep on growing; it never seemed to get any smaller. I found that I was ‘not alone’ in the universe, in fact I was just one little sperm and egg combination at the end of a long, long line of sperms and eggs that had gone before. It is humbling to realize that you are an insignificant member of one of a number of clans. Some of the clan names I already knew, but there were some clan names completely new to me; clans who had all become related by the accident of the marriage of some of their children. I knew about the Dangerfield’s, the O’Connor’s and the Williams but then there were the Thoday’s, the Cooper’s and the Laube’s, all new names to me. It was apparent to me that I could not write my own story without first writing the story of the clans who populated my family tree.

It is now 6.00 am, 28th November 2012 and it is my birthday. It is two years since I began my journey of discovery and today I am also one year older than I was yesterday. I am no longer 72 years of age, I am 73 years old! How old that seems to me. I remember asking my mother one day, ‘Mum, how old are you?’ and she said, ‘I’m 66 years of age, dear.’ I can remember looking at her in horror and saying, ‘Mum, you are so OLD!’ And now, if I thought my Mum was old at 66 years of age and I am now 73 years old, then I must be REALLY old! Why is it that I don’t FEEL old? Not only do I not feel old, I don’t really feel much wiser either and that’s a bit sad. But no matter, the one really important thing for me today, this day when I have turned 73, is that I have FINISHED my book! I am so proud of myself. I have ALWAYS planned to write a book. I didn’t know for sure what it would be about because the content changed from day to day and from year to year, but I did want to write A BOOK and now I have.

When I decided my family’s story should be written first I knew one thing. I did not want to produce a boring catalog of ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ information. I wanted my story to be enjoyable for both writer and reader. You will have to be the judge of whether I have been successful or not. ‘How much better it would be,’ I thought, ‘if I could actually meet all my past family ‘heroes’ and talk to them face-to-face.’ My solution was to ‘turn back the hands of time’ (are you old enough to remember that song?) and ‘visit’ my Rellies in my imagination and ask them all the questions I, and hopefully you, would want to know. This was how I built up my ‘history of the clans.’ I hope you enjoy my journey into the past.

Fay Berry 28th Nov 2012.