from whence we came

Sydney harbour, an overcast, windy, showery Sydney afternoon. We'd hoped for a small ferry so we could soak up the feeling, but it was a fast catamaran. Still, we stood outside at the stern and breathed in the harbour smells. I don't think I'd ever been that close to Pinchgut, it's tiny. Tried to imagine what it would have been like to be imprisoned there.

Down on the rocks at Cremorne Point. Some silent thanks that there are parts of the harbour that are still accessible, that haven't been privatised with multistorey apartments or mansions for the rich built on them. That you can still get down to the water's edge, it hasn't been cordoned off because of the relentless influence of the fear of the litigation. A couple of blokes were fishing from the little lighthouse right on the tip. We disturbed their fishing but before they left, we had done what we had come to do.

It was cool but not cold. The water bucked and slipped, the rocks seemed somehow familiar. Once, about 45 or maybe more years ago, he and I had come to somewhere near here to get oysters. He levered a couple off the rocks and ate them. You couldn't do that now, even if there were any left.

The view back towards the city never fails to catch your breath. I can remember when the AMP building went up on Circular Key, by far the tallest building in the city. We used to come down to the 'big smoke' once every couple of years, he and I, to pick up a new car from the factory at Zetland and take it back to where we lived in central NSW. I remember an Austin (Farina) A40, and an Austin 5 ton lorry with no tray, so we stopped outside the factory gates and he let the tyres down to about 5 lb to make the trip manageable. Once, an MGB and all the way home he made me do mental arithmetic, based on the revs shown on the tachometer and his knowledge of the gear ratios. Another time, my uncle came with us and we collected a Morris J2 van (or the Austin equivalent, perhaps), so I got to sit on the padded cover over the motor between the two seats for 267 miles. No seat belts in those days.

Anyway, time to do what we came for. The casket was remarkably strong and his grandson spilt blood before we were able to open it sufficiently. Looking back towards Mosman where, 91 years ago today, he came into the world. The wind caught him, as it had once caught the sails of the 18 footers he was occasionally invited to crew. That was after the family had fallen on hard times, his mother dead when he was only five. Forced to leave school at 12 to work in the markets before other winds, the winds of war, would catch him and transport him to the Western Desert, Palestine, Sicily and Italy where hours spent alongside powerful Pratt and Whitney motors would sow the seeds of his later deafness. And now he was back in his beloved harbour town.

Tomorrow, we would go to see the half-sister whose existence he never mentioned until a few short years ago. Her story, part of which is our story, would turn out to be far more extraordinary than we could have imagined.