Golden Fiddles

Golden Fiddles is a cheerful and amusing book about the Balfours, a struggling family in Gippsland, Victoria in the mid-1020s.  Mrs Balfour suddenly and unexpectedly inherits a fortune.

‘It was quite true, though it took the dazed Balfours some time to believe it.  Only when the letters came through from the Trustee Company in Melbourne did they venture to think it might not be all a dream.’ . . .

“Apparently some of the money is there already: you see, the Company say you can draw on them for what you wish.”  He gave a short laugh.  “Anne, it’s incredible.  ‘For what you wish’—can you take it in ?  I can’t.”

“Walter!”  she sat up with a jerk.  “We can pay off the mortgage!”

Walter and Anne Balfour, and their children—Kitty, Elsa, Bob and Norman—are used to living with very little.  Will it spoil them?

They move to Melbourne and have a wild spending spree, but after two years they decide that money is not everything, and they buy a large estate in the country.

This book was successfully adapted by the South Australian Film Corporation as a television mini-series in 1991, details of which can be seen here.

---

The Trustee of The Mary Grant Bruce Family owns the extant copyrights to this story.

First Published in: 1928
First Publisher: Ward, Lock & Co. Limited
Places First Published: London and Melbourne