Persuade Me release memories… When Dingoes Came to Call

It was a dark and stormy night… Or not.

It was night, but that’s about as far as the similarities go. I don’t remember how old I was, but it had to have been sometime in the very early 80s when my next-younger brother was still a baby. We were out in the bush somewhere. I don’t know where, or why, but we’d stopped for tea.

Dad built a campfire in front of the car, and we sat around the fire eating our evening meal. All around us was dark, and as the darkness grew, my younger brother began to cry. 

I don’t know why. Don’t remember if Mum tried to calm him. Don’t remember if his crying was because he was hungry, tired, or just wanted to be free to crawl around. Obviously, it was dark, we weren’t anywhere near home (which at the time was somewhere in Victoria), all that he had to crawl in/on was the rough ground. 

I’m picturing shrubs and a lot of rocks, but can’t be certain that’s where we were. All I know for sure is…

As my brother continued to cry, from out in the darkness a dingo howled.

And then another.

And another.

Until there were dingoes all around us. I can remember Mum and Dad putting us kids in the car, and have a vague idea the howls were getting closer.

As they packed up camp, the doors on either side of the car were open. My brother continued to cry and I can remember wishing that…

1. Mum and Dad would close the doors.
2. He’d stop crying.

I’m sure we were safe. I don’t know how close the dingoes really were, or how much danger we would have been in, but to my very young mind, we were in terrible danger and those scary creatures were within a hair’s breath of attacking.

Would they have done anything? I have no idea. I remember Dad saying something about them coming for the baby, but did he really say that? Were there dingoes in all four directions? I don’t know that either.

I don’t even know where we were or why we were there. I have an old photo of Mum and three of us kids standing in front of an old car with a metal detector. Were we out fossicking somewhere when this happened? No idea of that either.

So, let’s ask Mum and Dad…

“Your memory is pretty accurate for such a long time ago.

We were travelling through the Ranges near Cracow and stopped for a rest and feed. Randall, who was only a couple of months old, ran out of patience while we ate, waiting for me to feed him and began to cry. His cries brought the dingos in from all sides. Dad didn’t have a gun with him so didn’t waste time getting you kids back in the car while we packed up. It was dark and it was scary and they were wild animals coming in hoping for an easy feed, and we weren’t about to let them any nearer to try.”

I would have been 3 or newly-turned-4 at the time this happened, so this is one of my earliest memories. (Scroll to the bottom for the giveaway.)

More About Persuade Me

One horrible misunderstanding. Two heartbroken people.

For seven long years, Anne Elliot of Kellynch Station quietly mourned the loss of her first love. Now that she’s finally over Fred for good, her sister offers the perfect escape: Uppercross.

This move, from one cattle station to another, offers new friends, new responsibilities, and now that she’s out from under her father’s domineering thumb, a whole new world of possibilities.

The sky is the limit.

Or maybe the sky is the perfect place for helicopter mustering pilot Fred Wentworth to spend his days. It took a while for him to regroup after their breakup, but now he’s back, he’s successful, and he’s put the past so far behind him he doesn’t even think about Anne more than a couple dozen times a day.

Life is good.

Or it was until he quite literally runs into the one person he hoped to never see again. After that, what’s a bloke to do other than rethink every lie he’d convinced himself was the truth?

Although they both seem willing to admit they were wrong all those years ago, when things take a bad turn, Anne is left to wonder… Is it too late for a reconciliation?

Persuade Me: Austen’s Persuasion meets the rugged Australian bush—plus dingoes.

Now for the Giveaway

While we wait for tomorrow to come so we can see what my next memory is about, for the chance to win an ebook copy of Persuade Me, why don’t you leave a comment below and tell us if you remember anything from when you were three? I have the advantage of knowing things happened at a certain location (a particular house) so I know had to have been three at the time.

Entries close at midnight each day, so if you missed out today, stop by again tomorrow for another chance to win a copy of the book.