Born in 1962

If you were born in 1962, Australia was beginning to sense, however vaguely, that it existed in a wider world than the cricket scores and the Menzies speeches suggested. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October was front-page news and the wireless and television were sombre. But if you were a kid in a fibro house in a suburb of Brisbane or Melbourne, the missile crisis was mostly something the grown-ups whispered about.

More present were the sounds of change closer to home: the first stirrings of a genuine local pop scene, the beach culture producing its own music and slang, the new wave of Greek and Italian migrants bringing their food and noise and energy to the streets. The milk bar on the corner might now be run by a Panagiotis or a Carmine, and the menu had quietly expanded beyond malted milks to include a spanakopita or a gelato alongside the Violet Crumbles. The Davis Cup was Australia's again — Laver, Emerson, Stolle, Fraser — a golden era of tennis that made Australians feel like champions at something properly international.

The footy season ended with St Kilda followers heartbroken again. Summer came in hot and the sprinkler went on in the backyard and the kids ran through it in their swimmers, and for an afternoon, nothing else mattered.