The house it is no longer. Certainly, my memories, as a boy rest there from the period of early sixties. The photo precedes this time, my grandmother Ettie Lynch (nee Buckingham) is on the far right. My father was raised at the house during the 1930s. I remember the busy activity of Military Road at the Junction, the hustle of shopping traffic and trams. It was a vibrant area of activity, just around the corner from this quieter setting.

The family is the extended Buckingham family who arrived and settled into Mosman in 1913. George Buckingham was my great grandfather, an Englishman and former ships steward, he married Pauline McInerney, my great grandmother (2nd from the right). She was Australian and lived in Cumberland Street, The Rocks and George would have met her on one of his voyages.

In the photo (far left) is his son Bill, my father’s uncle, who died in the Second World War. George was at one time caretaker of Shark Island – he used to row out from Mosman Bay to Shark Island. The house stayed in the family and my father was raised there by his mother with the extended family.