I was born in England in 1953, allegedly under the shadow of the walls of Maidstone Prison.
I was chained, manacled and dragged screaming from the shores of Blighty at the tender age of three to follow the tracks of one of my predecessors who received free passage and accommodation in the penal settlement at Port Arthur.
We were ten quid refugees. Our transport was a rusting hulk, The Moreton Bay, apparently on its last trip (and legs) before being scrapped and turned into jam tins. The irony is that I lived adjacent to Moreton Bay in Queensland for many years.
After we stepped ashore in Tasmania, I suppose you could say we became peasant farmers as my father worked on farms growing apple trees.