Nothing and Everything: A Childhood Memoir

How does a child cope with guilt-ridden Christianity, a vindictive mother, an angry father, poverty, and her own major health problems? Increasingly called upon to run the family including responsibility for up to six younger siblings and the consequent decline of her school results, how did Sandra survive with no major impacts on her mental and emotional wellbeing? Through the lens of ’50s and ’60s moralisms, including Sandra’s inferior status as a girl, this memoir explores the first 20 years of her life in the male-dominated mining town of Broken Hill. In a place where women were expected to seek fulfilment as wives and mothers, Sandra knew she wanted more. But complicated by a lack of parental guidance—other than ‘do what I tell you’—she executed a few counter-productive twists and turns along the way. School became Sandra’s escape from home, with education ultimately providing the tools she needed to understand she was not a bad person, providing too the strength she needed to reject her parents’ belief systems, allowing her to go her own way. The story concludes with Sandra emerging as a young woman with a strong ethical and moral base, paving the way to a future of political activism. Sandra is living proof that a tough start to life need not determine one’s destiny, that we each have the power to break loose from our personal shackles to create our own futures. 

Table of Contents:
Spare the rod, spoil the child  1 Keeping the faith  14 Bill 27 Pauline  39 Maladies and remedies  53 We can’t afford it 63 For what we are about to receive  76 Santa Claus and other myths  86 The way it was  96 Escape to education  107 Ruth  121 A gene for cleaning toilets  136 The transience of friendship  148 Sandra can do better  162 Music—the antidote  175 Sandra does worse  189 Could any boy like me?  202 Second time around  216 You’re just doing it to get attention  229 Adelaide—the first seven months  240 Any port in a storm   254 Choices  267 Acknowledgements  281

About the Author :
A year on from where this book concludes, after learning about the potential for radioactive fallout from French nuclear tests in the Pacific, Sandra became active in the anti-nuclear movement. Since then, her environmental, political and social activism has never stopped, on issues ranging from the local to the international, from built heritage to the Iraq war. For three years Sandra taught in NSW primary schools, followed by voluntary work with the Australian Democrats in 1981 after moving to Adelaide. Over the next twelve years she was employed by a number of MPs and Senators and had a two-year stint with the Conservation Council of SA including as Administrative Officer. Elected to the South Australian parliament at the end of 1993, after 15 years’ service Sandra retired in early 2009, with many plaudits for the courage, compassion and integrity she had brought to that role, always speaking truth to power. Since ‘retirement’, Sandra has continuously held leadership roles within Sustainable Population Australia, an NGO which lobbies for population stability at a level able to be sustained by our unique environment.  On the political front, having visited Palestine and Israel, Sandra increased her active involvement in Palestinian human rights with an emphasis on the BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement. While this is her first book, at 74 Sandra is writing another about her political life, and is co-writing a third with and about an amazing elderly friend. To give balance to her life Sandra sings in a choir, line-dances, and reads books. She lives in Adelaide with her husband.

Review :
A deeply personal account of growing up in a working class 1960s mining community, where rigid gender roles, fundamentalist religion and family dysfunction add to that painfully relatable struggle: 'Will I ever be good enough?’ An honest, raw, challenging read. - Elisa Chenoweth, author of Maria Petranelli is Prepared for Anything (Except This) Of her birth day, Sandra Kanck muses ‘Thursday's child has far to go’. In Nothing and Everything, with unerring honesty and generosity of spirit, she reflects on the roots of resilience as she explores the punitive parenting regimes, hypocritical religious charity, racial intolerance, magic of music, and mysteries of maths that frame her remarkable journey to womanhood. - Emerita Professor Diane Bell, OAM, Australian National University, Canberra The oldest child in a crowded Methodist family where achievements were diminished and love was never prized, Sandra Kanck became an agent for change. This snapshot of a tough upbringing in 1950s Broken Hill speaks volumes about the pain and suffering of the overlooked. - Penelope Debelle, journalist, author A poignant and beautifully written memoir from an intelligent, fascinating and resilient woman. - Faye Janeway, SA COUNTRY WOMAN