This photograph was taken at 536 Illawarra Rd Marrickville, at the Cook’s River end near the Undercliffe Bridge. Dad would’ve been about fifty and mum in her late forties. It is not so remarkable today for a woman to give birth in her mid forties, but it was then and one (or both) of us was not expected to survive. The house was opposite a garbage tip (now Steele Park) and prone to flooding: the best they could afford at the time. Mum’s father, a farmer in the Liverpool area, was embezzled by a crooked solicitor, who subsequently committed suicide. She was forever rescuing errant brothers from hard times by selling off such small portions of land as remained. Dad was owed money, which was never repaid.