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MY BEGINNING IN CAULFIELD I was born in Melbourne, in Caulfield. I am the eldest in my family. The Distel brothers came out to try to miss the depression, but of course, they did't. There is a story about father coming around the coast from Perth: One passenger could speak English, one couldn't. Other passengers started picking on the one who couldn't, my father stepped in. 'You want trouble, do you?' I think they probably had a few punch-ups. They came by boat around the coast, must have been quite an adventure. I've got my father's details which are quite good, written in English which take you right back there! The records take you right back through his working life. It is quite an historical document. When my father came to Australia he had a choice about where he wanted to live. He brought various items for other people to help pay for his passage. He brought out one of the first gas hot water services and various other items such as hair dressing equipment; a lot of things. My father came out quite a few years before my uncle came out. It was the case that my grandmother wrote to father to say, 'can you look after Alf during the depression?' That was all it took, a few simple words. That was the start. Father had come to Australia first and was living in Perth when he got the letter from his mother. My uncle, Alf, arrived in Perth and the two of them traveled around the coast by postal steamer to Melbourne. The story goes that Dad left Alf sitting on the cases on the steps of Flinders Street Station while he went to look for accommodation. He had hoped for the Y.M.C.A. but couldn't find anywhere. He eventually located a lady in Brunswick who had a boarding house and she provided accommodation for the two of them. She was very nice, very helpful in those early years and looked after them during the appalling conditions of the time. They got on well with her and gave her a nick-name of "little mother."