Tony Birch

Oh, look, I have three grandkids, Isabel, who's five, Archie, three, and Charlie, who's 10 months, who's unfortunately in London, so I've never seen him in the flesh.

I had a chat on Zoom to him last night.

What I see is, I mean, it's that complexity of kids who are just like you, kids who you just see parts of yourself in, parts of your siblings in.

So Archie, my three-year-old...

grandson looks very much in some ways like my son drew and also my brother wayne who passed away a couple of years ago he physically looks like them he has actions that remind you of them so yeah the whole idea of blood dna it's all there

embedded history, embedded emotions.

But, of course, their lives are very different in the sense that their lives are much more secure economically.

They haven't suffered the issue that I lived with, living in a violent home and with a violent father.

So I know these kids have loving fathers, good fathers.

So there's very much something quite different, which...

I love I think that growing up the way that I did gave me a great sense of resilience and gave me a lot of strength but it also comes with a lifelong underlying trauma that you you never escape I'd rather my grandchildren live in secure and safety and be a bit insulated and be a little bit naive than have to learn the street smarts I did and you feel as a grandparent that

what you are or what you've achieved or what you've become was worth it because not only do you have children but to see these little people running about and having a life ahead of them you do feel well i've contributed something here that's worth it there's something here that i can give value to so i actually love being a grandparent and i love being around my grandchildren i

Outside my personal relationships, being with my grandchildren is probably my primary interest and my primary joy these days.

My grandson Archie has... He's already inherited op shop fever.

He comes here each Thursday.

We go to the op shop.

His dad's a firefighter, so obviously he's into fire trucks.

And we have about 30 fire trucks or garbage trucks in the house in his cubby.

And each week we would bring another one home and, you know, the whole time we go, not another truck, please, not another truck.

But he insists on buying another op shop truck, so he's inherited that.