Bernadette Brennan

And then we find out, you know, he had been in this rowing team.

He was the second eldest of four brothers.

They'd lived in this house with a garden that ran down to the Swan River and he had the world

At his feet, he was off to university to read English, which Frank thinks is an amazing concept because isn't that what we all do, read English?

Exactly.

Yeah, heartbreak.

But maybe we should explain a little bit of more of that world that Ferenc, his name actually, isn't it?

Not just Frank, it's Hungarian, it's

Ferenc, F-E-R-E-N-C, and that gets Aussie-ized to Frank.

He and his parents, Ida and Maya, have suffered dreadful privations before the war ended and they were able to come to Australia.

Ida had been this brilliant concert pianist and Maya had come from a big family of many siblings.

Maya ended up being taken to a work camp.

He was only one of two survivors of all those siblings and he was scarred deeply by the deaths of some of them, which he bore witness to.

And they've come to Australia almost...

just clinging to hope that this is maybe a way they can create a new life.

And Ida, when she arrives in Perth, is just horrified at what she sees as a kind of cultural desert she's arrived at and committed her life to.

And so Frank or Ferenc is this hope, this golden child that they have together.

And then he is struck by polio.

So the compounding tragedy of this family is almost unbearable.

There's lots of sunsets, though, lots of sun fading into the night.