Born in 1947

If you were born in 1947, Australia was in full reconstruction mode. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme was in its planning stages — a colossal engineering dream that would reshape the highlands and employ tens of thousands of migrants from a dozen countries. The immigration ships were arriving at Fremantle and Sydney with their cargo of displaced Europeans: Italians and Greeks and Poles and Balts, blinking in the southern light, quietly determined to make something new.

The street corners were absorbing this change slowly, cautiously. The milk bar — already part-owned by Greek families in many suburbs — was becoming a meeting point of old Australia and new. Mum was still making her Sunday roast, but the greengrocer two doors down had started stocking artichokes and eggplants.

The wireless was still king — *Dad and Dave*, quiz shows, the cricket commentary flowing through every kitchen window on a Saturday. Don Bradman was still the greatest name in the country, and when he batted, traffic seemed to thin on the streets as everyone found somewhere to listen. Kids played knucklebones and marbles on the footpath and swam at the local baths every school holiday.

The new fibro house in the new suburb was the dream and the reality for thousands of families settling into peacetime — small, practical, hopeful.