On this scorching (40o) Christmas Day in the other Perth, W. Australia, I am thinking of my g.g.grandmother, Jane McKENZIE nee GRANT who died on Christmas Day 1914 in Elmore, Victoria, Australia. Jane was the daughter of blacksmith Lachlan GRANT and Jean nee WALKER. She was born, or at least baptised at Edinkillie on 14.3.1836. Lachlan was the blacksmith at Ferness Bridge and after Jane married James McKENZIE, they all followed the rest of the GRANT family to Australia in 1857. What an adventure that must have been! Jane was a typical hardworking woman of her time. James worked at the diggings in Rutherglen and I guess they lived in a tent. However, after their nine year old daughter, Jane Elizabeth, drowned on 24.1.1866, James decided his fortune lay not in gold but in the land and he obtained a grant to return to farming. A slab hut was probably their first home and with the sorrow of losing their beloved daughter who had been born in Ardclach, and the hard work of clearing their land, life must have been tough. But they were Scots! After I had spent time exploring the areas they came from in Moray and knowing the area where they settled in Australia, I can understand that possibly only Scottish farmers would be able to survive. The land is similar and the isolation would be familiar to them. The living conditions in Scotland would not have been much better than they experienced in Australia. Jane gave birth to two sons who also died as children and two more who eventually took over the farms. I 'found' Jane Elizabeth by accident, when I found her mother's grave in an isolated bush graveyard and it mentioned the daughter who had drowned. I tracked down the inquest which makes sad reading. I think of them both with fondness today and would love to sit down with Jane, to chat about what it was like to grow up in Scotland, and also her life in early Australia. Happy Christmas everyone.............Judy