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literally). In fact, the rail line ran right along the school’s back fence. When Greg arrived, the school was just over 20 years old, an unexceptional, light brown, 1950s brick pile of buildings striving to live up to its motto, ‘ Facta non verba ’—‘Deeds, not words’. Greg took it literally. ‘The first year at high school I remember doing a ton of sport, and no school work. I started in all the top classes, then my grades plummeted. I think I was destined to be a sportsman. I dreamed of always being a champion, but I really wasn’t that good at anything, just average.’
    When he got home after school, Greg continued to look after Justin. He’d bolt out of school just after 3 pm, catch one train, then swap lines to get to Campbelltown. There he’d get the bus and arrive home around 5 pm, in time to pick Justin up from the local primary school. Then he’d cook dinner by 5.30 and have it ready when everyone arrived home around 6 pm. ‘My running started to drop off, I didn’t play footy anymore and, despite the surroundings, I didn’t like living out there. But I did find friends.’
    Around this time, Greg started playing a lot of squash. It started when he and Darren watched Noelene and Pat play in their competition. The two boys would pick up racquets during the breaks and after the matches. They’d be banging away on the darkened courts while the adults had their after-game drinks. As in so many sports, Greg was a natural. Noelene recalls: ‘Pat and I used to play in round robins and Greg used to come along—anything for sport. He’d sit up there and just watch—all concentration, taking in who was doing what. One day, we were short a player, so Greg took his shoes off, left his jeans on and started running around the court and hitting the ball like you wouldn’t believe.’
    By the time he was 14, Greg played number one in the men’s A grade side. Pat was amazed at his progress over the years. ‘He was a freak at squash, he was absolutely brilliant. He could have won state titles, except that he played all his divisions through the week and if the snow was good, he’d go to the snow on the weekend with his friends.’
    Once, during the NSW State championships, Greg played and won all his matches through the week and then won his semi-final on the Friday night. His mates arrived with news that it was blowing a blizzard on the ski-fields. So they jumped in the car and drove through the night to the snow, skied all day Saturday and then drove home early the next morning for a touch football game. Greg slipped on the icy ground in the first minute and broke his collarbone. Then he drove back to the squash centre to collect his runner-up trophy. Pat was left shaking his head. ‘He was in the final and he would have been the state champion. The other guy won it on a forfeit.’
    It was to be a recurring feature of Greg’s career: natural ability would propel him to the brink of major success, then the larrikin would chime in and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
    He started to travel to squash tournaments, and met the Hopkins boys—Cameron, Bruce and Scott—and their family. They would become a large part of his adolescent life. One of the great attractions of spending time with the Hopkins boys was that they lived in ‘the Shire’. The Sutherland Shire, on the southern Sydney metropolitan coastal border, is one of the last local government districts in Sydney to retain the old-fashioned ‘shire’ appellation, as distinct from municipality or council. Locals have always cherished the name and the attitude of mind that accompanies it. To Greg it was paradise. ‘Everything that you didn’t have in Campbelltown was in the Shire—hardly any violence, beautiful rivers and incredible beaches. There was also a different attitude. In Campbelltown, it was all about just hanging