After I had some success, I tried to convince my family to let me buy them an apartment on the river in Brisbane or a comfortable cottage near where they were living, but they wouldn't have a bar of it. My grandfather said, "People like us don't live in places like that." That really stuck with me.
The great disappointment in my life is that my grandparents died never having seen me on the box. To Gran, I was throwing away a safe career as a teacher to become a journalist. "What's that?" she asked me at the time.
My mum left school at 11. To me she was more of a mate than a mother, a funny woman who had learned a lot from the school of hard knocks. Whenever I went overseas for 60 Minutes or Foreign Correspondent, she'd ask me, "Where are you going?" I'd tell her and she wouldn't know where it was. I'd send her a postcard every week from wherever I was – Paris, Tehran, Belize, wherever.
I took Mum to New Zealand for her first and only overseas trip. She was well into her 60s at that point and I remember I had to get her to apply for her very first passport. I was captain of a debating team and we were debating whether New Zealand should be part of Australia. That was her one big trip – three days watching me make an idiot of myself debating.
I was in my last year of primary school when I started to notice girls. I was deeply in love with a girl who didn't even know I existed. It happened again at high school. I used to walk home with her every day and then one day she suddenly kissed me on the cheek. In general, though, I was so interested in my studies and sport that girls weren't a high priority.
On occasion during the '80s, I was approached by distressed female colleagues seeking my solace, even advice, as a result of what I later discovered was predatory treatment at the hands of power-mongering males. If I hadn't heard about it from the women themselves, I may have remained blissfully ignorant.
I recall telling at least one young colleague that there were legal steps she could take. She feared she would lose her job. Like most blokes of that era, I had – and still have – a hell of a lot to learn. "#MeToo" is a giant wake-up call for my generation and the generations that have followed.
I also had, and still have, a hell of a lot to learn from Kirsty, my partner of 32 years. For all our shortcomings, we still talk every day about what we're doing wrong and right. The secret to a long-lasting relationship is knowing that it's never going to be perfect.
We have two boys, now young adults. Being a parent came quite naturally to me, perhaps because I had such a loving upbringing. We tried to raise them the same way I was raised – to respect women and to listen to them. I reckon they'll do the listening bit much better than my generation did.
Why is it that I've always found women more absorbing and substantial than most men? Maybe it's because from day one, I was part of a family run by women. Hopefully our sons will experience many more work places run by women, but change can be painfully slow where gender relations are concerned. Let's hope the pace is finally quickening.
