John Makita

They loved their community.

They loved going out.

You know, some of the fond memories that I have with my grandparents was, especially when I was there on school holidays, was when I was sick, when they lived in Red Hill.

It was, we'd go down at lunchtime or in mid-morning to the local shops and my grandmother would buy myself and if my brother was with me something sweet to eat and we'd always get a toy or something.

But we always had to be back home at lunchtime for Bold and the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives.

And she'd make us the big victory sandwich and sit us down and sort of like say, shh, okay, no talking now for the next hour and a half.

And it doesn't matter if anybody rang on the telephone, they were all ignored because that was the time for Marlena and Stephen and the others.

So it's those sort of memories that you remember the most.

And, of course, her cooking.

My grandma was a five-star Michelin chef as far as I was concerned.

And she'd make wonderful walnut cakes and lots of different Hungarian sweets and things.

So, yeah, it was just...

It's a lot of really great memories which came crashing to an end on that night.

We have to remember, too, that back where my grandparents came from, so they came from Hungary during the revolution.

And they left the country with basically the clothes on their back.

My grandmother was cooking and cleaning, I think, for one of the Russian soldiers.

And she had learned a little bit of Russian and she had worked out one evening that the government was going to clamp down on Russia.

the revolution and close the borders.

So she literally went home, grabbed my auntie and my mum and my grandfather, and they walked across the border that night into Austria.

And so coming to Australia with nothing and starting from basically scratch, I think my grandmother had a bit of a fear of losing money and leaving things behind.