Sheryl McCorry’s remarkable personal story

Diamonds and dust published in 2007 was Sheryl’s first autobiographical work. It recounts her childhood, growing up in the Australian outback with funny memories of carrying crocodiles to school for show and tell. When she was eighteen her family moved to Broome, and it was the first time she’d ever used a telephone or seen a tv. A year later, she got married to a drover named Bob McCorry but the marriage ended after only a few months. Sheryl became the only woman in a team of stockmen, a woman mustering cattle? She went on to become the first woman in the Kimberley to run two million-acre cattle stations, but her life was not without its share of tragedy. She pulls no punches and is brutally frank as she describes the eruption of her marriage to Bob McCorry. From the man of her dreams and her soul mate, he becomes a stranger to her. Her roller coaster story is full of hardship, drought, joy and triumph. She now divides her time between Mount Barker and Broome.

Sheryl brings her story up to date in her second book, Stars over Shiralee. She has moved to a place named ‘the Shiralee’ and is shocked to the core when she receives the news of her ex-husbands death. She at first leans on her parents and her children for comfort as she continues to run ‘The Shiralee’. She then meets a new man – who is seemingly a wonderful match for her. They get married. Sheryl then learns she has breast cancer. Moving and inspirational, Stars over Shiralee is the million acre cattle queen’s surprising continuing memoir. Both books can be borrowed from the Gold Coast City Council Library Service.