Tony Birch

each year and they were kids who were over from very poor white families and Aboriginal families and kids who were successful in getting an allocation would be sent to families over Christmas.

My older brother and sister had gone on an aeroplane, which to explain that would be like saying, oh, my brother and sister went to Mars on a rocket.

It was such an outlandish possibility.

And they'd gone on an aeroplane for a one-week holiday one Christmas, and I was four years of age.

It was before I'd gone to school.

And I was so jealous and envious, I just drove my mother crazy, telling her that I wanted to go on a holiday in the following year.

I don't know that it was her nagging the nuns at school or that I'd had a good school year, which I was a pretty good student in primary school.

But the next Christmas, I was told that I was having a holiday and I'd be spending that with a Catholic family.

And I was told that I was going to a place called Rosanna.

And I wondered how long the plane trip would be and

Well, it's a 10K from the CBD, Richard.

And I got into a car with this woman, this little Morris Minor, and this woman dressed expensively.

I still remember in a red coat, a red hat and pearls.

And when we got in the car, I thought we were going to the airport.

And then we pulled up outside a triple-fronted cream brick veneer about half an hour later and I thought maybe we were picking up some other kids who were also going on the aeroplane.

But, in fact, we were at the destination, which was where I was staying.

I still remember going into the house and being introduced to a family who looked like they were out of an American sitcom like Father Knows Best or My Three Sons.

in a beautiful sort of modern Australian 1960s kitchen, incredibly bright and light.

I remember the lino was grey and pink.

I never forgot that.