Decent People: A Memoir of Family in Colac, Geelong and Warrnambool

Decent People tells the story of David Jellie’s ancestors from their arrival in Australia up to his parent’s generation. They came from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England and Croatia - all arriving between 1835 and 1861. Three of them were sailors who jumped ship, and all gravitated to the Western District of Victoria where they became pioneer farmers. Their families are still rooted there.

Some prospered and none failed. These pioneer Australians were not dwelling on the past when they left the shores of their homelands, but were looking to a new future for themselves and their successors. They were touched by the vicissitudes of the time and place of their lives - shipwreck, infant mortality, pandemic, untimely death, human frailty, drought, economic depressions and wars.

They were all decent people.

In Decent People David Jellie tells their stories with tenderness, intimacy, humour and gratitude.