At 90 years of age, Busselton author Laurel Trigwell has published her second book, Against the Odds, which is a story of her family history, written in verse.
It was quite the feat for the talented writer to contemplate writing the book as Ms Trigwell has suffered from sight loss over the years, affecting her ability to read and write.
Thanks to a friendship she developed with her support worker, Fran McGuinness, Ms Trigwell gained the ability and confidence to fulfill a lifelong goal.
“She was my inspiration really, she helped me so much with the writing,” Ms Trigwell said.
After learning about Ms Trigwell’s desire to write, Ms McGuiness sourced the writer a magnifying glass and voice recorder to help her along.
“From there on it just blossomed out,” Ms Trigwell said.
“I could not have done it without somebody’s help because it would have been too hard for me.”
Ms Trigwell never thought she would be able to complete the book and said she felt “satisfied” for accomplishing something that had been on her mind for many years.
“At last it is completed,” she said.
The story is spread across the time from when her ancestors first arrived in the region in 1841 right up until the current date.
Ms Trigwell said she hoped to convey the struggles of how her ancestors survived in the early settler days, saying it was a moving experience to look back at her family’s history.
“I did not realise how hard life was for those who first arrived, they came out here and started off with nothing,” she said.
“I felt like I got to know them as people, they were not strangers anymore.”
She said there was no comparison between her life growing-up to life now, often thinking that children were given too much or that they were not appreciative of things.
Ms Trigwell said life was hard when she was growing up with everyone having jobs to complete, “no matter how high they were.”
“We had kerosene lamps to read and candles of course, there was no fridge, we had a coolgardie safe (a construction made of metal) with hessian and a tray on top with water which had rags hanging down, so when the breeze came it cooled down.”
