The author, Stephen McClure, was born in Birmingham, England in 1950 and came to Australia permanently in 1957, being raised in the vicinity of Cronulla, a southern seaside suburb of Sydney. Ours was a family formed of my parents, both of whom were in the Royal Navy during World War 2, and four children, a girl and three boys, of which I was the youngest. I attained the Higher School Certificate in 1969 and worked as a clerk for the Commonwealth Government, then the telephone company. My mother and sister have died, leaving only the men of our family. My wife Catherine and I met in our late forties and married in 2001.