Kerry Allyne

Kerry Allyne was born into this world as Julia Phyllis Crabtree in London, UK. She, as a 12 year old child, migrated to Australia with her parents and two brothers as 'a ten pound pom' arriving in Sydney in 1950's.

Soon after she returned to England to visit family and the following year repeated the exercise only this time travelling through the Suez Canal and returning via the Panama Canal, hence completing a journey around the world.

She met her husband to be in 1960's and married at Hunters Hill Church. Susan and John are their two children. In 1970's the family moved from Sydney to Lismore to experience life in the countryside and enjoyed the contrast from the hustle and bustle of a large city to the supposedly quite rural aspect of life on a small farm.

Julia's first book, Summer Rainfall, is almost a true story in that the trials and tribulations endured by her heroine were in fact duplicated by Julia. Here, life did in reality consist of milking the cows, making her own butter in a churn to growing her own fruit and vegetables. McLeans Ridges in the book is real as were the dances and the 'business centre' as described. The dipping of the cows, the roads, the rain and the vehicle punctures were drawn on life experiences.

With an adventurous spirit and a love of travel the family continued to move and experience adventures retaining the town of Lismore as a virtual home base. The family lived in Cairns in far North Queensland for four years, in Bendigo in Victoria for two years and spent a time as the lessee of a hotel at Cunnamulla in Queensland. During the period in the late '70s into the '80s Julia travelled and gathered background information for her books from places as diverse as Broome, Darwin, Alice Springs, the Whitsundays, Thursday Island and travelled over virtually every road in Queensland from the tip of Cape York down the Birdsville track to Adelaide.

Western New South Wales and Tasmania did not escape her love of adventure either and became part of her itinerary.

Ill health befell her and the last ten or so years of her life were extremely difficult and it was a sad day in June of 2003 that the world suffered a huge loss when Julia passed away.

Julia was cremated in a Brisbane cemetery, a city she retired to in 1989 and is sadly missed by her family.