Dave Pearson

He was a telecommunications engineer, so he spent...

Some of his time over in WA in the mines, putting in telephone exchanges and things like that.

Mum was working in a children's home.

So we were, I guess, not left to our own devices, but we were them kids who, you know, would look after each other when we got home from school.

We'd come home, do our homework, get changed and go out and play football all afternoon until it got too dark.

That was my life as a kid.

So it was either push bike riding or football or skateboarding.

Skateboarding become my major passion once I discovered surfing because

If I wasn't in the ocean, at least I could be on a skateboard.

Definitely.

Yeah, I got the scars to prove it.

So mum worked in an orphan's home.

It was in Borkham Hills was the suburb.

And it's nice because mum and dad are still with us.

And we go to dinner at least once or twice a week.

And we always talk about the old times.

And I remember the day we got to Australia, dad walked from, we were at the Malabar in the Nissan huts that they put the immigrants in.

Dad walked from there to Alexandria.

We arrived at eight o'clock in the morning and dad had a job by one o'clock.

And I do remember mum walking from Parramatta to Borkham Hills.