Well known Wellington local Lloyd Spratt who with his brothers owned a butchery in the 1940's said he still remembers a young Colleen McCullough on a bicycle charging down the street to buy her family sausages.
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"Young Colleen would come into the shop before school and order our special sausages. She was a real character even back then'' Mr Spratt said.
Colleen McCullough an acclaimed internationally famous Australian Author passed away in a Norfolk Island on Thursday. She was 77.
She was born in Wellington on June 1, 1937 and went to school in the town in her early years before the family moved round the country.
"She loved those sausages and I joked to a Qantas steward if you see Colleen on a flight remind her of them. The steward did one day, and said Mrs McCullough hello and welcome. Would you like the lamb today its from the Spratts Butchery in Wellington oh absolutely yes I would she said I love the Spratt boys and their meat. That reminds me of some great days' she told the steward who regaled the story to Mr Spratt," Mr Spratt said.
Mr Spratt said the writer who wrote the blockbuster book The Thorn Birds lived in Simpson Street Wellington.
"Just across the road from the tennis courts I recall, they appeared a very happy family. I think her father was an itinerant worker who was really a cane cutter," Mr Spratt said.
The Wellington Regional Library on Friday was inundated by calls from people wanting to know about Colleen McCullough on hearing of her passing. There are about 20 books, DVD's and Audio tapes in the small town's bookcases.
Wellington's mayor Cr Rod Buhr said he would discuss with fellow councillors about unveiling a plaque dedicating memories of her life somewhere in the town, quite possibly near the old house in which she lived in.
Ms McCullough worked as a neuroscientist in the United States before turning to writing full-time. The Thorn Birds, a romantic Australian saga published in 1977, has sold 30 million copies worldwide and is the highest-selling Australian book, helped by the popular 1983 mini series.
The paperback rights for The Thorn Birds, Ms McCullough's second novel, were sold at auction for a then record $US1.9 million.
Her 25 books included a deeply researched fictional series set in Ancient Rome, which won her the admiration of readers including former NSW Premier Bob Carr and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, and was credited with renewing interest in ancient history among university students.
McCullough lived on Norfolk Island for most of the past 40 years and married Norfolk Islander Ric Robinson in 1983.
Colleen McCullough in a radio interview with the ABC talked about her early life.
"Money was very scarce in my family. I was 15 and my mother gave me 5 pounds to go to town and buy my last overcoat. I saw a Bluebird portable typewriter so I bought that instead.
"My mother was not impressed," she said
She said education wasn't important to her family.
"Nobody ever showed our report cards around, getting 100 per cent or 99 per cent didn't mean anything to our parents, but if you ran 100 yards in 9.6 seconds they would have been thrilled."
"My mother said I was too big for my boots and I would be cut down to size," the famous author said.
"Writing was more of an avocation rather than a vocation... the really happy chance is when writing to please yourself happens to please the rest of the world."
(There were many other stories but she burnt them, she didn't want distant relatives cashing in on work she wasn't happy with when she was gone.)
"After you die the avaricious relatives go 'I wonder if aunty had something in the attic'. Bugger that, it's not going to happen round here because I'm going to burn the lot."
Angel Puss was her favourite because it "didn't' travel far", it was about a small eccentric world in Sydney's King's Cross.
"I am gregarious, people-loving, I relish life and I'm going to be dead an awfully long time."
She died on Thursday afternoon after suffering a series of small strokes. She had lost her sight from macular degeneration and was restricted to a wheelchair.