honourable Japanese

[Max Hedges]

Sometime in the 1990's a 20 year old Japanese girl came to the Yass for work experience, she came to learn about wool and was misdirected to a goat farm and was told they were sheep. We can't remember how but she came to stay with us for 10 days, and it so happened to coincide with our shearing (the same happened to Swiss Chris later on). During her stay my father wanted to meet her, so we took her to visit, and dad being his suttle self asked her if she had any relatives in the war (by this time dad had mellowed a little towards the Japanese) once she realised my father was in the war as a front line soldier, she became very upset and begged to go home. Then there was a very touching moment when dad went and picked a flower from the garden and gave it to her, she settled down and really treasured that flower for the rest of her stay, and she showed a lot of repect towards dad afterwards. This girl took a fleece of wool home with her as it happens it wasn't work experience she came for it was to learn about the process of wool as she was doing textiles and design at university and planned to spin and weave the wool into fabric and then make a garment from this.

This shows how time does heal a little with old soldiers as during the 1950's at wool sales in Sydney when dad first saw a Japanese, since the war he had a very bad reaction and had to be taken away into a different area.