1. Da, his favourite granddaughter Dorothy, and his ‘wee dug’ Jackie. This photo says so much: my Da with the only person he liked to spend time with, and the one who shared his life, his dog. The walls in this photo sum up Glasgow for me. The chalk drawings and marks were not just graffiti. The streetlights were always broken so drunks would leave a trail marked on the walls to find their way home, a bit like Hansel and Gretel. 2. Elizabeth Dixon and John Dixon. My Da and Granny in happy times in Glasgow. I don’t remember them together a lot. Granny would go around to his house and look after him but she couldn’t live with him. 3. The Scottish Western Districts Championship cup, 1953. Dad won many cups and trophies. This is the only one we have left. Mum smashed them or threw them out or at him when they fought. 4. My dad, James Ruthven Harvey Swan. In his heyday. He wasn’t that big but he could fight as good as any man, in the ring, in the house or on the street. He thought fast and punched faster. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. The Hut, 1952. Mum and Dad by the sea with John. My mum was very young and beautiful. Dad was fit and handsome. These days didn’t last too long. 2. My dad with Dorothy and John. The van in the background looks a lot like the cars that Dad would buy to fix up. Way beyond saving. 3. On the street in Glasgow. Dorothy, young Alan, myself and John. The Royal Bar in the back was the scene of many a bloodbath. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Aunty Maude and me. Aunty Maude was Mum’s sister. Apart from my granny, hers is the only family I ever saw again after leaving Scotland. Her son Jackie and daughter Joanne are the only cousins I know and I love them very much. We all need family. 2. John, Linda, myself and Dorothy with Mum and Aunty Maude. I’m not sure where we are. It might be Port Seton on the only holiday I remember in Scotland. 3. Linda, John, Dorothy and me at the beach. Scotland wasn’t famous for its beaches but it looks like it was famous for very high bathers. The sky is grey and it looks fiercely cold. It must be midsummer. 4. John, myself, Dorothy and Linda in Glasgow. John used to say that my ears were so big I looked like a taxi with the doors left open. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Dorothy, myself, Linda and John on board the SS Strathnaver, somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We had escaped the horrors of Glasgow and landed on a ‘luxury’ cruise. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 2. Mum on board the ship. While the boat was a luxury cruise for us kids, Mum soon realised that she had escaped from fighting on the streets of Glasgow by jumping on board the Titanic. Any hope of saving her marriage was sinking fast. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. The SS Strathnaver. To us, this was our ride to a new life. It would take us away from everything that was stacked up against our family and give us a break. Well, that was the plan. (© WEST AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPERS LIMITED)
1. Me sitting outside our Nissen hut at the Gepps Cross Hostel. It was so hot inside. Outside the air moved occasionally. Inside the air only moved when Mum and Dad threw things at each other. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 2. That’s me aged six. There are a few photos around with me as a kid with no front teeth. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. Elizabeth, City of Tomorrow. Slow down. Who were they talking to here? It could have been the trucks that rolled in from the north, carrying food to the hungry immigrants who would fill the houses yet to be built. Or were they talking to themselves? Let’s think about what we are building here. Will this work? They could be talking to the families who couldn’t wait to get there and get hold of their dreams. Maybe it was written for kids like me who would be running around the streets. Look at the dry prickly ground under the sign. This sort of ground cover would ambush young shoeless boys like me. My feet hurt just looking at this picture. Elizabeth, City of Tomorrow? It seems like yesterday I lived there. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE)
1. Twenty-odd miles from Adelaide, somewhere on the main highway that led north to the dead heart of Australia, lay Elizabeth. It was flat, hot and dry. This was as far from Glasgow as my folks could run. It was in the middle of nowhere. But everything was laid out nice and neat. Each separate area had its own shops, its own school and its own football grounds. They all had the same problems though. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE) 2. Me and Alan with our mum on the front porch of 45 Heytesbury Road, Elizabeth. That is the door Mum used when she left us. The door always slammed because it was attached to a spring. When she left we didn’t hear a thing. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. Hamming it up in the front yard. Mum tried to grow a lawn but it didn’t work. Nothing grew well at our house. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Lisa, our little pizza pie, Linda, myself and Dorothy on the back porch. I get a feeling of emptiness when I look at pictures of this house. We were always hungry and our lives were empty. It was hard to feel love in this house. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 2. The train at the Elizabeth West shops. The things I saw from the front of this train still crash their way into my dreams and I wake up gasping for breath, hoping I never have to think about them again. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE) 3. If I saw this postcard I wouldn’t be booking my next holiday here in a hurry. I don’t know if ‘beautiful’ is the right way to describe Elizabeth in the early days, but the place had a lot of potential when they first built it. Some of that potential was reached; some was lost in the haze from the heat that rose from the red dirt. But what really makes a place great is the people that live there, and a lot of great people have come from Elizabeth, and still live there. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE)
1. The Centre shops. This photo was taken near the front of the coffee shop. I walked through here on many a boiling hot day, running from one patch of shade to the next, trying desperately to stop my bare feet from being burned by the blistering heat of the concrete on the way to the swimming pool. Later on, I sprinted through the same shops at night, avoiding thugs who wanted to bash my head in, or running with a gang of my mates, trying to get away from the police. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE) 2. John and I in the driveway at Heytesbury Road. Behind us you can see the scrawny candle pines that Mum planted. On these trees there were small spikey pine cones that I used as ninja stars to throw at my sisters. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. In the summer this was the best place to be. The temperature would reach the one hundred mark and everybody in Elizabeth seemed to be on the verge of blowing a gasket. In the morning I would sit outside on the footpath, waiting for the pool to open. Then I would run in and dive to the bottom. It was cool and quiet down below the surface. But, unfortunately, I always had to come back up to the waiting world. When I’d been in so long that my skin began to wrinkle, I’d go and sit on the grass and daydream. Thinking about life. Well, food and girls anyway. (CITY OF PLAYFORD HISTORY SERVICE)
1. Myself, Alan and Lisa sitting at the table, ready for breakfast. Reg and I would set the table the night before so we could eat as soon as we woke up. It also gave us a chance to eat cereal before we went to bed. 2. This is me in action, playing football after moving in with Reg. I spent most of my time as a young guy playing football. I thought I was really good, but I’m not sure I was. 3. Mum and Reg. Mum looked beautiful and happy then. But things would change. Reg looks surprised. He had a lot more surprises once we came along. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Aunty Dorrie with her nephew Reginald. She’s the one who first taught Reg to play piano. 2. Reginald Victor Barnes. This was before we met him. He looked kind of cool, like Buddy Holly, but when we saw him the first time we all laughed. Dad called him a big streak of nothing. But there was a lot to Reg. 3. Grandma and Grandpa. Reg’s parents. These guys were real salt-of-the-earth Aussies. No airs and graces. But they probably had skeletons in their closets too. I’m sure they did because my sister saw ghosts walking around their house at night. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Reg’s grandmother, Mabel Evelyn Barnes. My sister Linda met her at Grandma’s house. Reg’s grandmother would talk to Linda at night and tell her about life and how to deal with it. The only problem was she had been dead for a long time before we moved to Australia. 2. Uncle John and his wife Tania. John was the rebel of the Barnes family – the black sheep until we came along. It wasn’t long until we made him look good. 3. These four brothers were all decent blokes. I liked them all. Uncle Tom, Reg’s youngest brother: a great guy who was a little wild when he was young, so he had a soft spot for us. John, who took me to speedway meetings and encouraged me to drink beer. Reg, dressed in his standard outfit: a cardigan and slacks. And Edward Barnes: Uncle Ted worked with Reg and was the boss at Kelvinator. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Reg thought he was cool riding around on a scooter. Mum doesn’t look that impressed, although I think she is showing him a bit of leg there. Reg was probably more interested in her slippers. He would have wanted a pair too. 2. Dorothy, Lisa, myself and Alan on an outing with Reg to Mount Lofty. We weren’t used to family outings, but Reg insisted that the family do things together. Normal things. That’s what families do. 3. The same day out. A normal, healthy, happy family. At this point in time we might have been, but cold winds were starting to blow even then. Things wouldn’t last. Everything always fell apart. 4. I’m not sure when or where this was. I have a feeling that it might have been at Uncle John’s house. They had outside toilets but this was getting ridiculous. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. There’s that taxi with the doors open again. This is me when we moved in with Reg. I was happy. I had just started at Mansfield Park Primary School. You can see why the tougher kids at that school thought I was an easy mark. I look innocent. 2. A very happy young Alan in very high pants and myself in a very short tie. I might have been wearing his tie and he might have been wearing my pants. Who knows? John, who was a mod and refused to wear a tie unless it was paisley, and Warren, a bloke who went out with my sister Dorothy for a while. We were all dressed up for a party. Sooner or later trouble would break out. 3. Grandpa and my sister Dorothy. The whole family loved Dot. She was a great kid and a great sister. If it wasn’t for her I think I would have died many times. 4. Reg and Mum getting married in March 1970. In the background you can see the piano that Reg played for us. It sounded great then and it still sounds beautiful now. 5. The Barnes family with their new members, the Swan clan. Grandma seems to be keeping away from us a bit. Probably the best thing. You could never tell when Mum would turn. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Me, Lisa and Alan. Mum never had a lot of money for clothes so I started borrowing stuff from John. This was one of his tight mod jumpers from Merivale. Cost him a fortune. I think Alan is wearing one I had stolen from John earlier. I would borrow them and then Mum would machine-wash them so they never fitted John again. Lisa is as usual happy and smiling. I love these two guys. 2. Linda and Dorothy. My two big sisters out looking for trouble. They always seemed to find it too. Reg would say things like, ‘Over my dead body will I let you go out with skirts that short’ – and out the door they would go. 3. My first real band, Tarkus. That’s me at sixteen, dressed in baby blue. Michael Smith is playing bass at the back. He and I are friends to this day. Mark, who is playing guitar, died quite a few years ago. This photo might have been taken at the Elizabeth Community Centre. I think it’s the only photo of this band. We weren’t that great. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Apollo Stadium in Adelaide. This was a place where you could see overseas as well as interstate bands. My mates and I would kick the back door in and charge through before the bouncers could get a hold of us. The other thing we did was at interval, as people were coming out the front doors for a smoke. We would push back into the crowd as it flooded out and grab a pass from the unsuspecting doorman, pretending we had been in for the first half of the show. One way or another, we were getting in. (NEWSPIX) 2. Me at sixteen with too much attitude and a bad haircut. I seem to have had a lot of those over the years. The attitude hasn’t gotten any better either. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. John Fraser, a mate of my brother’s; John, leaning, looking like he might have had a few drinks; and me, looking like I am after a drink. John could drink more than anybody I knew. I wanted to be just like him. I got there eventually. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. The big poster for Cold Chisel’s second gig at the Gawler Trotting Track. By this time, we had decided that Orange was not a good name for a band, but the poster was already printed. This star-studded line-up would pull about fifty punters to the big gig, including the horses. (THANKS TO TIM PRESTWICH) 2. Cold Chisel in 1973, on the back of a truck at the Gawler Trotting Track. Our careers at this time were going nowhere, a lot like the truck we were standing on. But this was the first line-up. Ian Moss on 335 Guitar with curly hair and no shoes. Me with flares so wide we could have done an indoor gig underneath them. My dear departed friend Steve Prestwich. A great spirit our Steve, funny and talented. Les Kaczmarek, also gone but not forgotten. And a bearded Don Walker playing a Fender Rhodes piano that he hit so hard that pieces fell off it all through the show. This was the bunch of guys I would take on the world with. My dear friends, my new family, my accomplices. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)