Born in 1950

If you were born in 1950, you came into the start of Australia's long, golden Menzies era. The wool boom was making fortunes in the bush, the suburbs were spreading outward from every city, and there was a sense — not quite articulated but deeply felt — that the country was on its way. The new Holden was everywhere, puttering up the gravel driveway, parked outside the milk bar.

Australian families had never had it so good, or so it seemed. The Korean War broke out and Australia sent troops as part of the British Commonwealth forces — another conflict, another call-up, though nothing like the enormity of the last one. TV was still years away, so the wireless was everything: the cricket in summer, the footy in winter, serials every evening.

On Saturday afternoons, families drove out to the drive-in theatre if they were lucky enough to live near one — parking the Holden, hooking the speaker on the window, eating potato chips in the dark. The push-bike was every kid's transport and obsession, and the corner milk bar — with its formica counter, its jukebox, its tall milkshakes in silver cups — was the centre of teenage social life. Life felt uncomplicated and forward-moving, and if the future was uncertain, well, it usually looked after itself.