Panel 2

Designer Mary O'Brien says:

Elaine Lee married Stuart Hosking in January 1963.

'I was lucky to have known and loved such a lady for 32 years.'
Stuart Hosking

Elaine and Stuart had three children, Michael, Kim and Jan, and moved from the Mallee to Melbourne. They became involved in the political push to end Australian involvement in the Vietnam war, marching and supporting the 'Save our Sons' movement in the late 60s.

When the children were seven, five and three, Stuart and Elaine went to work in Papua New Guinea for about ten years.

'The New Guinea material came in red, green and white and all the kids had clothes made from it. Typically it was Elaine supporting a group of New Guinean women who had set up a co-operative.'
Jenny Beacham

Elaine loved flowers and gardening, and created lovely gardens at every home they lived in.

'When we went to New Guinea the house we lived in was bare, and when we left it was like a jungle screened by flowers, palms and creepers.'
Stuart Hosking

Towards the end of their New Guinea stint the family went to England and lived in a thatched dwelling for some months before spending three months travelling through Europe in a Bedford van. The children kept diaries of places, travel and events. Elaine 'corrected' their diaries in the evening to ensure their spelling and grammar was correct. She liked people in control and aimed at perfection for her family. She liked her children doing 'something constructive' such as reading or writing. Her main influence was to teach her children to be independent thinkers.

The script and children's drawings of barges on the Rhine, the Black Forest and presents purchased in Switzerland at the top of this panel of the tapestry are from the children's diaries.

'We drove along way down the Rhine.' 

'Then we drove into Salzburg and Daddy was taking pictures every few minutes.' 'There were cuckoo clocks and wooden music boxes and fun fair things.' 'You could see 37 peaks over 3000m high, and 19 glaciers.' 
Extracts from the children's diaries

The travelling van depicted along 'the yellow brick road' represents life's journey as well as travel. It distinguishes the differences and similarities between cultures, the southern and northern hemispheres, families influenced by place, and wonder at our world in general.

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