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Ayu was just a small girl in a Balinese village. She was being trained to dance The Legong, an important dance that originated in Balinese palaces. It is a dance of quick, graceful steps and movements of the hands. Small girls are the ones who perform it with great beauty; when they grow older they are no longer Legong dancers. About The Road to Goonong, David says, 'I often think of my childhood and the farm we loved, but were forced to leave. It was always the place we thought of as "home". In fact it was the last time the whole family lived together: from then on some of us were in boarding schools, then new jobs. What I find strange is that, when I speak to my brother or sister, they will have memories different from mine. "Is that so?" we say, and, "I don't remember that happening." David Cox was a young boy during World War Two. He remembers his class racing outside to watch long lines of soldiers in trucks and jeeps passing by, and how the children played war games and knew every aeroplane and tank and warship. Everyone took part in the war effort, and they longed for the day when it would be over. This book is a companion to 'The Road to Goonong'.
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