My Federation Story has to do with the theme of cultural identity and belonging.

This isn’t very unusual, especially nowadays in fact, I’m sure most people can relate to it wherever they are.

I emigrated to Australia from Scotland in 1995, along with my family. This was a couple of weeks before my sixteenth birthday. My Mum is Australian but left Australia for Europe in 1964, when she was 13. Then at the age of 44 she decided she wanted to return, along with my step-dad and two brothers. I think they were very brave to do this.

We came to live in Brisbane. I was the only Scottish-sounding person at school at that time and it was very embarrassing. At 15 you don’t want to stand out from the crowd. However after a while I liked being different. I eventually lost my accent, even though I tried to keep it.

From the age of 15 onwards my cultural identity was very important.

I had not thought about it much before. I felt more Scottish after leaving Scotland than I ever had when I was there. Then in 2005 I went back to Scotland for a visit. It wasn’t until this time that I felt Australian. Its funny how this sense of belonging to a country sometimes only comes about when you aren’t there.

My Australian schoolmates were quite intimidating at first. The girls were very tomboyish, tall and sporty. My school in Scotland had not even been able to fund a soccer team! My first impression of Australia viewed through Brisbane in particular, was that it is a country of extremes: intense blues and browns, piercing white light on the road, extraordinary animals, insects and plants, and extreme heat, rain and dryness.