Alf Rattigan

Tapestry of Life: Short Stories by Alf Rattigan

Enraged bulls in a shed full of bananas, near collisions at sea, whisky-soaked roses on coffins, weapons discharged on Sydney trams, tenacious trouser presses, lost cakes, trade conferences and searches for sewing machine parts ? these and so many more incidents, the places they occur and characters that are involved in them are all threads in the tapestries of a life recalled and related in these recollections. As well as a memoir of a full and rich life, the stories in this collection provide glimpses of Australian social history. Not the history of momentous events, great persons (although their author was one) and cultural shifts, but the history than can be found in the odd, the eccentric, the unexpected amidst the on-going demands of the everyday. The voices found in these stories, the voices that tell these stories, are not only that of the author but those of people he met, sometimes only once, people he worked with and, occasionally, people he lived with. They are nearly all Australian voices.