Most Australians born after 1970 could not be blamed for acquiring the impression that the 1960s was one long party of sexual abandonment, drunkenness, the defiance of authority, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, British pop, anti-Vietnam protests, marijuana, hippies, flower-power and so on in that colourful style. One saying is that if you remember the 1960s, you were not there. A witty comment, but the small number abusing themselves to the state of memory loss are all long dead and in no position to make that boast. I can report first-hand, however, that this picture of widespread youthful abandonment is fanciful, designed to impress those who could not know better.

In July 1960, I turned fourteen. I was in my second year of secondary school. My father carried his camera around with him, ever at the ready to shoot photos of his adored children. We have thus a pictorial record of those years when five of my parents’ six children were in their teens.