Early Life
I didn't give myself any airs and it was very hard for me to think I was different from a lot of other people. I couldn't be seen to be different because I remembered my humble beginnings...
George Jones, quoted in 1992Jones was born near Rushworth, a rural community in Victoria. The date that appears on his birth certificate is 22 November 1896; however this was the date of registration and not of the birth itself, which occurred on 18 October. His father, a miner, had died three months earlier. Jones was brought up in a strict Methodist household and for the rest of his life rarely touched alcohol. He attended Rushworth State School, leaving at the age of 14 with a Certificate of Merit.
Following his schooling, Jones took an apprenticeship as a carpenter before moving to Melbourne, where he became a motor mechanic. He undertook three years part-time military service prior to World War I, firstly in cadets and later in a militia unit, the 29th Light Horse Regiment (also known as the Port Phillip Horse).
Read more about this topic: George Jones (RAAF Officer)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“They circumcised women, little girls, in Jesus’s time. Did he know? Did the subject anger or embarrass him? Did the early church erase the record? Jesus himself was circumcised; perhaps he thought only the cutting done to him was done to women, and therefore, since he survived, it was all right.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
“As in an icicle the agnostic abides alone. The vital principle is taken out of all endeavor for improving himself or bettering his fellows. All hope in the grand possibilities of life are blasted.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)