The year before I started school in 1960, there was a field at the bottom of Matilda Street in Sydney with a path that led to the back door of an old house on the next street over, Dominion. One of my earliest memories is of escaping the backyard of our family’s new home, where I was playing alone, going all the way down our street and then, like a child in a fairy tale, walking down the path through the high grass to “Papa’s and Mama’s house”, the home of my Jessome grandparents.

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