I congratulate the 100 successful new authors who have contributed to Seniors' Stories Volume 11 who embraced the theme, Then and Now inspiring the stories within. Your submissions covered our Australian culture both past and present with your historical tales and current yarns creating a rich patchwork of topics that evoke nostalgia and for our newer Australian readers, to learn how life was in our country since the Wars. The stories have exposed the many styles we have come through in all our walks of life. How we coped without technology and embraced it as it developed. How families in difficult circumstances took risks and with friendship support worked their way through the situations and in particular with food shortages all sorts of sharing and bulk-buying schemes emerged with neighbours. Our mothers were such creative cooks, making family meals for us from whatever limits were available. And of course our ancestors were all such capable seamstresses, sewing, knitting, darning … was there anything our mothers couldn't do? I particularly enjoyed some of the stories which shared how family breakdowns were supported by other family members, sometimes melding families, so all members could just easily move on with their lives. Expressing and sharing these stories about how we managed then, as compared to how we live our lives now has created an important legacy of history for readers to recall or learn and enjoy. Congratulations to every writer who is in Volume 11, many for your debut publication, others have been around once or twice in earlier volumes but you all deserve our gratitude, along with Seniors Card, for your worthy stories for our pleasure to read.
