I went to Willoughby Girls High, I finished my high school certificate and then I did shorthand and typing the next year. Then started travelling and never used it since.
Whenever a car would come down the road, my mum would tell us to hide 'or else the welfare man would take you away.'
I started by hitting balls against walls with an apple crate board.
My goal is to share information and to educate. But am I an activist? No, no, no. I don't believe in pushing things on people.
I was protected from a lot of publicity and politics of life.
Racism is about education. Racism is ignorance.
Anyway, when I get sorta tense and start thinking about every shot, that's when my game falls apart.
When I went through some racism through my early days and I went back and told Mum... she said, 'Don't worry about that, they're just ignorant.'
I always just thought of myself as a tennis player.
I certainly had a lot of fun during my career playing tennis, doing the thing I wanted to do and to do it well.
When I started I was pretty well the only Aboriginal player who was playing tournaments.
We couldn't afford anything. Suitcase, clothes, everything, Barellan people bought for me.
Neither winning nor losing means as much to me as knowing the crowd has enjoyed my match.
Some players feel that winning is everything and that losing is a disaster. Not me. I want the spectators to take home a good memory.
The white explorers had been my heroes. The Aborigines, I thought they were real savages. That was what I'd been taught and that's what I believed.
I remember I hadn't bought anything for my Mum for Christmas and I actually won an iron, so I was excited that I could take that home for her.
There is no higher honour in sport than being selected to represent your country and I have certainly taken great pride in always giving my best in my position as Fed Cup captain.
Every time I hit the ball I would pretend I was on that magical court at Wimbledon. And then every time I went to sleep at night I would dream about playing at Wimbledon one day.
About three months after I had Kelly, I went and played in Canada. I felt great, I was ready to go and I was very energetic. But as soon as I started playing, I thought 'no, too soon.' I went back home and slept for two days.
It's wonderful being a mother playing anyway.
