Being the son of an avid Zebra Finch man, I spent countless weekends going to bird shows when I was young. I remember seeing people like Roy Pinch, Jim Clark, Ray & Betty Naylor and John & Joan Lewis, all quite successful on the show bench. Back then birds didn’t mean a great deal to me, although I tried breeding zebra's and budgies like a lot of kids. But I was more interested in the rides of the agricultural shows back then. Over the years we covered a lot of the country shows, Particularly Orange, which was always a great time as a kid.

I remember coming home from a meeting at Bruce Reeds place one night without a clutch. Dad was working hard changing gears on an our HQ Holden, which was a column shift, as the clutch cable had snapped very early into our trip home. But we made it. Its meaning to my life is little, but I vividly remember driving up Victoria Road coming to a red light rolling slowly so not to Stop.

On one of our trip to Orange, we were just out of Lithgow when a stone broke our windscreen. We stopped Dad punched out a whole in the glass so we could continue our trip we were all cold, but we got there on time with Dad, Mum, 3 kids, 30 Caged Birds and luggage surviving the trip.

When I got to the age of about 14, Dad thought about giving away bird keeping, so I put up my hand and said "well I'll keep them". The gene that all avicultural "widows" fear had been inherited. So for the next 3 months I took care of the birds, I had paired a few up for a couple of days, I came home from school one day and my pairs had been split up and new pairs had been put in their place. He was back into the birds. I didn’t particularly mind because I was still able to dabble myself having the birds so close.

I had a short period where I was breeding Star Finches, when I was 16. I had bred 1 very nice looking youngster and was looking forward to showing him, when a dog had broken in and to the cock birds aviary. We lost the Star and quite a few of our best Zebra Finch cocks.

I was 17 and driving, when Dad and I drove to Orange in our Datsun 180B SSS which we had just bought. Dad drove to Bathurst and then handed the car over to me. We were going down through the big dipper halfway between Bathurst and Orange, I was not paying attention to the speed when Dad said "Go a bit quicker down the hill so we don’t have to drop out of 5^th gear", I looked at the speedometer and replied "We're already doing 140" to which he responded" Oh, that’s fast enough then". I don’t know of any other 17 Year Old who has driven 40kph over the speed limit in the presence of their father.

I grew up, moved out and wasn’t in a position to keep birds, but I always had the interest in the birds. In 1997 I went to Perth with Dad to the National Teams Competition. If I was introduced to somebody it would be "This is Bruce, Geoff Roberts son". I have now got myself to a spot in life where I have the time to enjoy the addiction that started so many years ago. Having been around the aviaries and shows for the entire 32 years of my life, has given me a lot of enjoyment and pride in being able to try to produce top quality birds. These days if I am introduced to somebody it's "This is Bruce Roberts." In a few years it will probably change to "This is Geoff, Bruce's father."

The people like Roy Pinch, Jim Clark, Ray & Betty Naylor and John & Joan Lewis. There still around. I respected then as adults and then as experts about Zebra Finches and I now  get the respect of the members. It shows that lifelong friendships and associations can be made in our great hobby and I believe this is one of the most important parts of our society.

Bruce Roberts