When I was five years old, I lived at 302 Dryburgh Street, North Melbourne, and on Saturday mornings my Grandfather, William (Bill) Coyle would look after me while my mother worked in the city. My grandfather was about 162cm (5’4”) tall, and about as wide. His grandfather, a lawyer, had migrated from Ireland to Australia in the 1800s. They were good Catholics; my grandfather had 14 children, of which my dear ...

Another piece of dad’s ‘irony’ was to allow me to do almost anything I liked (within the law), even take his new 1956, two-tone-green FJ Holden, registration GND 535 (that he would park in Kipling Street before leaving the keys on the ‘fridge’ and retiring to the lounge room to read the paper) for an unapproved drive past the milk bar where my mates were. He came out the next morning ...

I used to think that it was really tough of my dad to expect me, at age 18 (in 1958), to be home at 8:30 in the evenings on Thursday and Friday nights, so that my mother would feel secure in the house with my little sister. This had been the requirement for a number of years, and it included Tuesday and Sunday nights as well. The reason for this ‘cruel ...