A generation apart

Dad and me 1950s; me with my son Inigo in the back yard at Wooloomooloo 1970s. When we returned from London we found an old mid-Victorian terrace house for $14 a week in Riley St under the new railway over pass, the place had been operating as a brothel with partitions and filthy matresses in the rooms; we cleaned it up, emptied the piles of used tissues and rubbers into the garden, painted the walls and hung up our old kilims from Turkey and Afganistan, batiks from Jakarta and shadow puppets from Bali. I salvaged some young banana trees from deserted gardens due for demolition and planted them in the tiny backyard, they grew well and the fruit was sweet, is it any wonder...