'This is my sister. She is nice'.

Six words that melt my heart, a message from the late 1970's. We are at my Granddad's retirement party. In the background of the crackling tape, I can hear their cockatoo, cleverly named 'Cockie', who lasted twenty years in a tiny cage, and my father, who is talking to my Uncle Paul, my mother in the kitchen, and my granddad, who sings onto the tape in his thick Yorkshire accent.

Our own accents on the tape are clearly Australian, though we speak very well - no *wader' over the 'water', because Mum would kill us. My reading voice is very clear. I loved reading aloud.

The tape has turned up this month in a box of photographs, with nowhere to play it - we have all got rid of our tape decks long ago. My son, however, works for the only tape recording company in the southern hemisphere, so spends an afternoon listening to his Mum and Aunty as 9 and 6 year olds reading, singing, and talking nonsense.

I hear Judy, our childhood dog, barking. The young me on the tape tells future me all the tricks Dad taught her to do. 'She's eating my socccckkk' I squeal. That collie cross looked like it had corgi genes, and got fatter and shorter when she became my Nana's dog.

Little me spends 15 minutes reading one of my stories onto the tape. Something about Susan and Richard and a magical staircase. My sister and I mispronounce 'Berenstein' when we talk about his book 'The Spooky Old Tree', which we agree isn't really spooky. A few weeks ago I read that same book to my grandson.

Time goes wibbly wobbly as I listen. The past keeps receding, faster and faster, but there we are, caught in time.

My sister's sweet chime sings 'I'd Like to TEach the world to sing'. I think it became the song on a Coke Ad. We recite ads and make up our own. We get it wrong. We are practicing our voices. THe tape stops and starts. Cluck, whirr.

There's an ear bleeding rendition of me playing Good King Wenceslas on my much loved recorder. I played that at assembly the following year - my best on stage performance of my life. I was so proud.

We also sing 'Old Bailey' - a song where little me barely knew what half the words meant, except for the terrible sadness of being sentenced to the colonies for life and that longing for a land far away. The sisters of the past sing high: 'singing toorali-orali-addity, singing toorali-oolari-ai, singing toorali-ollari-addity, we're bound for Botany Bay'.

Oh had I wings of a turtle-dove
I'd soar on my pinions so high
Slap bang to the arms of my Polly love
And in her sweet presence I'd die

We learnt a lot of songs at school. They stick. To this day I can remember the lyrics for many of them. They're a way of culturing kids. I hear my little sister on the tape sing this Aussie classic, a song of proud multiculturalism of an era that seems long gone. I went to a multicultural primary school, full of kids from Greek, Italian, Chinese, English and other ancestry. The song makes me tearful. Kids dont know what it is to not embrace others unless they're taught.

I'm as Greek as a Souvlaki, I'm as Irish as a stew
I'm Italian as spaghetti, I'm as Danish as a blue
I'm as Turkish as a coffee, I'm as Pom as strawberry Jam
And I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am
Oh I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am

Oh I've been to Neocropolis and seen the South of France
I've walked around the pyramids and done a Cosack dance
I've sailed a dozen seas and seen Vienna from a tram
But I live down in Australia and I'm proud of what I am

I'm as Greek as a Souvlaki, I'm as Irish as a stew
I'm Italian as spaghetti, I'm as Danish as a blue
I'm as German as a dumpling, Middle Eastern as a lamb
And I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am
Oh I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am

We've come from every corner of the world to build this land
And I know that we can make it if we lend a helping hand
We'll live and love and learn together every single day
'Til every young Australian can be really proud to say

I'm as Greek as a Souvlaki, I'm as Irish as a stew
I'm Italian as spaghetti, I'm as Danish as a blue
I'm as Dutch as any Gouda, as Yanki as a ham
And I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am
Oh I'm an Aussie, yes I'm an Aussie, yes I am

Oh, I'm as Greek as a Souvlaki, I'm as Swiss as cheese with holes
I'm as Yugoslav as Rocky, I'm as French as crusty rolls
I'm as Asian as a noodle, as Pacific as a clam
And I'm an Aussie Yes I am

We're on #threetunetuesday, but the tape had more songs - this one, which I can't recall, though there is a Jim Croce version. Mum said we learnt it at school. We sing it sped up, as if we were impatient. Perhaps lunch was ready - one of my Grandma's spreads, with tinned salmon with the little bone in the centre, slapped in a bowl, lengths of spring onions, lettuce, bread.

Jim Croce is looking very Borat like here, no?

The end part of the tape is almost my favourite part. We are talking about books. I sound very teacherly, and I consider perhaps I was always going to be a teacher. I'm asking my sister about her favourite author - it's Enid Blyton, which Mum had to strictly wean her off.

'Do you like books' I say, as if I'm the ultimate reporter.

'Oh yes' my sister says excitedly. 'I like reading them! I usually run out of bookmarks but at the moment I have heaps'.

We talk about reading 'The Seven Little Australians' and watching it on the ABC, and how sad it was that Judy died. It was a scene that stuck with me a long, long time - I think she was hit by a falling branch, the father at war. It was a great little mini series.

My sister and I still share book recommendations, and still get them from the library, despite the passage of some forty years since this afternoon and a tape deck.

With Love,

d