Those were the days of horse drawn wagons, and travelling tent shows that combined comedy, drama and circus acts.
His first job of the day was to round up the horses. They were never tethered at night, but let loose to graze. Travellers couldn't afford hay.
A lean, foreign looking boy, he would wander over the nearbuy fields until he tracked them all down, pushing them in the direction of the campsite.
They knew where to go, he said. No matter how far they had wandered in the night, they knew the way back to camp.
By the time he got back, the campfire was lit and breakfast was cooking.
He never made it sound romantic. The life was hard, and the family often went hungry. He grew up learning to live off the land, catching rabbits, gathering dandelion leaves for greens and jumping into icy cold streams when the salmon ran, to catch dinner with his bare arms.
But the freedom of that life is unimaginable to us today. He was free to travel anywhere, free to learn from nature's ways.
All his life he cherished this freedom he had known as a chavvie. As the world became ever smaller, he travelled further, going to places his elders had only imagined.
But he found that while the ability to travel where you pleased became more efficient, the freedom to travel where you pleased became more restricted.
He often found the modern world a difficult place. Raised in freedom, he had to learn to live within society's strict boundaries.
My father, Little Beaver Kavanagh, half wild traveller, half Apache Indian, died in Australia in July 1981.
Twenty years ago he gathered his last strength for a great journey. I hope he found his freedom again.
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