I spent my childhood in Kununurra. In 1965 it was a remote East Kimberly town of around 1000 people. My father, The Revd Barry Green, and my mum, Jan, had said ‘yes’ to the Bush Church Aid Society when asked to uproot their young family from St Paul’s Cooma. I was five and my brother Philip was a toddler. My parents were twenty-seven.

The Ord River project, the construction of the Kununurra Diversion Dam, and the Argyle Dam, were in full swing. There was no Anglican priest in the North-West. Dad would be the first.

At the completion of an epic road trip, 4000 kilometres of mostly dirt roads north from Perth, through Carnarvon, Onslow and Broome, we approached the Diversion Dam. Our journey had been relatively uneventful apart from the sibling fights mixed with spilt cordial and tears! It was hot, dry and dusty. The water at the edge of the dam beckoned my father, a good swimmer who had grown up with the ocean in Wollongong. But not my mum, a non-swimmer, raised in Kurrajong in the Blue Mountains. Dad made a split decision, one that could have changed our destiny. He turned the wheel of our vehicle and headed towards a boat ramp where the mud-brown water lapped. He took a dip while Mum, my brother and I stood at the edge. I didn’t see my mother disappear into the Ord, or hear the firm voice of my father telling me to hold my brother’s hand and not let go. But I will always see the figure of my mum, water dripping from her hair, tracking down between the buttons of her sodden navy blue linen sleeveless top, her matching shorts stuck to her wet legs. And there was the unspoken moment, the silence of a miracle.

Left: Mum holding th twins with Elizabeth in the background
Top Right: The fmaily after arriving in Wyndham before the house in Kununurra was available
Bottom Right: Elizabeth, with Philip and Helen one of the twin sisters

My father spoke of this childhood memory when I was writing about my medical story. How he thought he had lost his wife when she had slipped into the river. He dived beneath the surface of the murky water and desperately reached around him to seek her. He resurfaced and saw a sole air bubble floating at a distance. He lunged towards it and with his outstretched hand felt the top of my mother’s head and lifted her from a watery grave. What were the odds? I reckon that counts as a ‘God moment’.

It was the first of many ‘what ifs’ as my parents grew their young family, adding my twin sisters in 1966. Mum said that we had guardian angels 24/7 within our home. There was no local doctor. Communication was limited, though our church house had a landline phone. We had fans; not air-conditioning, and no television. I missed fresh milk and crunchy green apples. My mum placed a grocery order every six months which would be shipped to Wyndham for collection – toothpaste, soap and toilet paper, tins of Sunshine powdered milk and Carnation milk, Vegemite, cans of tuna fish, baked beans, corn and Golden Circle pineapple rings. Station people would give us sides of Kimberley beef, which Mum stored in an upright chest freezer. We had little money, but she would make us ice-cream and icy poles from powdered milk and Milo; bake biscuits, and cook casseroles.

In 2024, I asked my father which of his parishes he had enjoyed most during his sixty-one years as an Anglican priest and he said, ‘Kununurra was the most challenging ministry I had, but the most exciting – it would have to be Kununurra.’

My brother’s greatest sense of belonging also stems from this time; his early childhood was at Argyle Station where he was cared for by the Peters family after my mother was flown to Perth for management of her twin pregnancy. I stayed with my Dad. I went to bed late and accompanied Dad to town gigs where he played his banjo. Kununurra is where a part of my heart remains. Something about that red dirt.

The Parish of Kununurra celebrates its 60th anniversary during September. Celebrations will be held in the parish and in this issue of The Real Australian we also feature an article from The Revd Barry Green (to be published online on September 19). Elizabeth has written a book entitled ‘No Time for Makeup’: The life of a flying doctor and paediatrician. It’s available for purchase on Amazon.