MOST AUSTRALIANS born after 1970 could not be blamed for acquiring the impression that the 1960s were one long party of sexual abandonment, drunkenness, the defiance of authority, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, British pop, anti-Vietnam protests, marijuana, hippies, flower-power and so on in that colourful style. One saying is that if you remember the 1960s, you were not there. A witty comment, but the small number abusing themselves to the state of memory loss are all long dead and in no position to make that boast. I can report first-hand, however, that this picture of widespread youthful abandonment is fanciful, designed to impress those who could not know better. In July 1960, I turned fourteen. I was in my second year of secondary school. My father carried his camera around with him, ever at the ready to shoot photos of his adored children. We thus have a pictorial record of those years when five of my parents’ six children were in their teens.

Until I left school at the end of 1963, my dear mother, with her keen sense of decorum, forced me to wear my school suit to formal occasions. I was particularly peeved that at seventeen, I had to wear my St Ignatius Riverview suit to my sister’s wedding in August 1963. On less formal occasions, my older brother and I wore a natty combination of navy blue blazer (which we called a reefer jacket), matching slacks, black shoes, and a white shirt with the indispensable thin black tie. Our hair was worn short, oiled and neatly parted, except for a brief period in 1960 when we tested my mother’s sense of respectability by hacking away at our hair until we sported a close-cropped hairdo like Murray Rose’s. Celebrated champion swimmer Murray Rose had again won gold at the Rome Olympics.