As hot as a Qantas hostie*

It began when I strained the potatoes.

When I was very young, I once excused myself from the dinner table with the polite announcement that I was ‘just off to strain the potatoes’.

When I returned from the bathroom, my mother was still berating my poor father. ‘Where would Barry pick up things like that, Eric? Probably from one of your rough men.’ She added, ‘You should never taken him to those jobs of yours. Who knows what language he’ll pick up!’

My father was a successful builder of nice houses for the well-to-do, and I loved to accompany him to the building sites and talk to the workmen, Pat Bagot, Alec Gibson and Arthur Gallagher.

My father wore a grey, chalk-stripe, double-breasted suit, a tie from Henry Buck and an English trilby,