Esso-Upon-Brighton

Sydney's Brighton Le Sands will mean a lot of things to me throughout my life. Joanna and I stayed at the Novotel when it was brand new. Every time we'd drive to the city or airport when I was a kid the signs warning you there might be sharks in Botany Bay would fascinate me. I was on my way to the city to see a play for a school excursion one day when the bus broke down on the corner of Grand Parade and President Avenue. We waited for an hour and missed the play before another bus came and took us back to school.

That same corner holds other significance for me too. It was the location of a small Esso service station where we spent a decent number of hours as kids during school holidays while Dad worked there. There's an apartment block there now, but before that it was still a service station and muffler place for years after Frank managed it.

I can tell you exactly when it was and how old I was because, like a lot of formative events in my life, I only need to remember the movies that were out and the pop culture happenings that were going on at the time. It as from around 1978 to around 1981, because in 1978 the band KISS arrived in Australia for their first ever tour. We were too young to go and see them and wouldn't have been allowed to anyway – mum had seen too many stories in the news about stampedes at their concerts and fans getting crushed and suffocated.

Dad teased us that he'd seen their plane coming in to land at Sydney Airport (that stretch of Grand Parade offers an unencumbered view of planes coming in) and I was giddy with the prospect until we realised because of some news report or other that he'd been joking – their plane had landed in the middle of the night.

And in May 1980, The Empire Strikes Back was in cinemas. We'd already seen it, but one day when we went with him to work, Frank dropped us at the little twin cinema Kogarah Mecca on Station St to see it again (bit of trivia – the bloke who bought it in 1971 ended up going to jail for child sexual abuse, and there David and I were, nine and 12, sitting in his cinema by ourselves).

We'd occasionally go across the street and play on the sand at Brighton Beach, but most of the day we'd stay in and around the servo. There was a little display room at one end of the premises where I remember playing with smurfs and toy cars, the shopfront area in the middle and the workshop off the other side. If you were at Dad's funeral, you remember David explaining that he was the petrolhead – he was in the workshop a lot more than me and took a far deeper interest in the goings on of cars and motors.

I don't ever remember being bored going to Dad's work at Esso Brighton, but I know I wasn't the least interested in the automotive trade. I probably went into the workshop to ask if I could play on the hoist (I couldn't) at times, but mostly I sat in the shop area pilfering chocolate bars and soft drinks from the vending machines.

Dad made the mistake (or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing) of showing us how to open the machines with the keys, so you can imagine. I had to write down a list of every drink or chocolate bar I took because I had to pay for them out of my wages for helping Dad at work, but I don't remember ever having to.

I also exhibited a very early interest in human sexuality by flicking through the collection of Ribald and Penthouse Cartoons magazines in a low drawer behind the counter.

Mum probably would have had a fit had she known I was reading them, but Dad – as we all know – didn't worry about anything in life and I remember him laughing along with me at the jokes on occasion. Today any parent would be hauled into court for that kind of thing, but I assure you I've grown up quite well adjusted thanks to both their parenting styles.

For all I know, having me sitting around stuffing my face with junk food and reading the resident porn collection at nine years old might have irritated the hell out of him while he was trying to do his job, but I like to think Dad approached it like he did everything in his life. He took everything in his stride, and if you were family he didn't hesitate to do the right thing by you.