Moving back to regional NSW was jarring – until we joined the local tennis club and found a community and a sense of fair play on and off the court
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Six months after moving back to the New England region I experienced a quiet hour of panic, wondering why I’d so blithely swapped the suburbs for the district I was born in. Seven years on, I realise it was the identity crisis I needed – but what really helped was taking up social tennis.
I admit to spending decades running from the bush. If I’d stayed on the family farm at Myall Creek I’d have become a third-generation grazier, a country teacher or solicitor. These perfectly respectable careers were identities handed to me on a plate, yet I’d shuffled off all my birthrights to become an artist, journalist and equality campaigner.
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