About the author

When I started living in Basso, I was a teenager and I used to hang with the other juvenile delinquents in the pool and pinball machine parlour on Old Perth Road, next to Tony’s Pizza Bar. These two palaces of entertainment and gustatory pleasure are sadly vanished.

There were two kinds of people in those days, Rocks and Surfs (well there were Skins as well, but they were way too scary). Rocks and Surfs were sworn enemies of each other, for reasons lost in the black and white categorisation of youth. We considered ourselves Rocks because we lived nearer to the hills than the beach. Surfs obviously identified with the surfie culture and Rocks, well they were pretty undefined then as now, but I counted Guildford Grammar School boys and petty immigrant criminals amongst my friends. All now sadly vanished to do hard time.

I, however, am still living in Basso, where I am now a respectable member of the cultural community. See, you just hang in there long enough and you’ll rise to the top, or more accurately, a few inches off the bottom. Persistence is everything.