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One long slow summer's afternoon after school, I discovered my potential for drawing. I took a large piece of butcheris paper and a pen, and drew my father harried and besuited, with a cigarette hanging off his lower lip, and a packet of Pall Mall in his breast pocket. Over the next few months, I started to accumulate a portfolio of portraits. Refinements were added, like his Vietnam Moratorium badge. He had joined the Balmain branch of the Labor Party, left wing faction, and when Whitlam won, he was ecstatic. I drew him with a smile, a bottle of wine, and an It's Time! badge. I drew him with clogs, tie-dye cheesecloth shirts, designer denim.

Dad was an avid reader of the Left Wing press. At Charlie Mead's parties in Willoughby, he met Ed Reinbaum, famous editor of The Nation. Together they liked nothing better than to talk about Gough, the causes of the Vietnam War, and Dad chipped in with his' time in Bangkok and …