Julia Gillard, 48, Deputy Prime Minister
“When I finished high school at 17, my family went back [to the UK] for Christmas in South Wales, from where we’d migrated when I was four. We went back to my dad’s small mining village of Cwmgrach. He was one of seven brothers and sisters, and his mother was our last surviving grandparent.
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“I remember, vividly, being in a room of 30 or 40 people and the amazement of realising how all these people were related to me. They were my aunts and uncles and cousins. It was overwhelming, but in a good way.
“It was the Christmas of 1978 and it was the first time I’d ever seen snow. There was something so magical about a white Christmas, but it was a shock to find out how much a snowball can hurt – they’re not like cotton wool at all! Also, it was bitterly, bitterly cold and my grandmother had an outside toilet!
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Read more from this interview in the December issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly out now with Julie Goodwin on the cover.