Lofty: My Life in Short: A Memoir

By Lofty Fulton

A memoir of standing tall against the odds
Australian voice-over artist Lofty Fulton knows what it's like to have the odds stacked against him: Born with achondroplasia, which is a form of dwarfism, his grandmother thought he should be locked away from the world. At school, he suffered years of relentless bullying, believing the lie he would never be loved or good enough.

At 15, Lofty's voice broke, giving him a unique gift that paved the way for his future.

LOFTY: MY LIFE IN SHORT is a deeply personal memoir - of vulnerability and courage and humour as Lofty unpacks the events of his traumatic childhood, public bigotry; a failed marriage, the highs and lows of a successful radio career and his struggles with crippling general anxiety disorder, clinical depression and a serious gambling addiction.

Lofty's story is a collusion of light and shade; a reflection on what it means to be human, to search for meaning and purpose. From brokenness to breakthrough, Lofty has slayed many of his inner demons, rising to become one of Australia's most sought after and recognisable voices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Mar 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781460709238

Lofty Fulton

Lofty Fulton is a freelance voice-over artist, who has been working in the Australian and overseas market since the early 1990s. Since then, he's worked across almost the entire spectrum of voice-over and for some of the biggest names in advertising, from McDonald's to Toyota, and all and sundry in between.  He has been the branding and promotional voice for major radio and TV network stations, both at home and overseas. Over recent years, as the narrator of MasterChef Australia, his voice is heard in over 180 countries worldwide. Chances are you've heard him and don't even realise it. He is represented by EM Voices in Australia and Vox Inc. and the Sheppard Agency in the USA. For more information, see Lofty's website at www.loftyfulton.com.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I WAS STANDING IN front of Dr Spence, our paediatrician, for my infant check-up. Dr Spence was a softly spoken, middle-aged man with thinning hair and glasses. Mum and Dad had seen him several times when I was a baby, but this visit was the first one I’d remember. I was five.

Dr Spence’s office was classy. His dark-stained wooden desk was ornate, with one of those leather inlays on the top where he could write a letter, a prescription or something else of importance without fear of his penmanship scratching the surface of the beautiful bureau.

The chair, equally spectacular, was leather backed and it swivelled from side to side and rocked back and forth. It could have been a distraction for me if the moment hadn’t turned so serious. Dr Spence wore a white coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. His examination table was against the wall. There was a set of small steps, which could be dragged out for little kids like me to climb up to the table. A curtain could be pulled across for privacy.

The pièce de résistance was a round, fat jar of coloured jellybeans – a prescription for ‘hurties’ when needles were administered.

My legs dangled over the examination table as Dr Spence gave me the check-up that all kids of that age receive. Satisfied he’d seen enough to know I was okay, he lifted me down off the table and motioned for me to take a seat next to Mum.

Now Dr Spence reached for his jellybean jar and opened the lid.

‘Would you like a jellybean, Ian?’ Dr Spence said, holding out the jar.

I shook my head. ‘No, thank you.’

Not needles again, I thought to myself.

After reassuring me there’d be no needles, Dr Spence lowered his voice, as if about to share a secret he didn’t want even the walls in his office to hear. For a moment I felt somewhat privileged: I was to be let in on top-secret information and entrusted with it. I leaned in, my eyes wide.

My memory of the next few minutes is unclear, except for this: ‘Ian,’ said Dr Spence, in his gentle but firm voice, ‘you will never grow up to be tall.’

I stared at him in total disbelief and looked over at Mum, who fidgeted uncomfortably.

‘Are you sure? How do you know?’ To a little boy with big dreams, this was monumental. Then I threw all my five-year-old logic at him. ‘I know I’m not as tall as the other kids, but I’ll catch up – besides I haven’t finished growing yet,’ I said. ‘I’m just a kid – all kids are small. Give me a chance.’

There was a long uncomfortable silence.

Dr Spence picked up the jar and again offered me a jellybean. Again, I refused. ‘You’re wrong,’ I protested through tears.

‘I wish I was,’ said Dr Spence. He tried to explain more about my dwarfism. I wasn’t listening.

Mum was crying. Of course, she was already privy to this information as she and Dad had been dealt this devastating blow when I was a newborn. It must have been difficult for her, knowing the sole purpose for the visit was to break the news that would change my life forever.

‘H-how tall w-w-will I be?’ I asked, trying to catch my breath in between sobs.

Dr Spence pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ he said, ‘but you won’t be as tall as your brother and sisters.’

I frowned and said nothing.

After another moment’s silence, Mum thanked Dr Spence for his time, stood up, gripped my hand firmly and led me out the door.

I was still crying when we got outside and continued to do so for days. Mum later told me I kept saying the same thing over and over again: ‘It’s not fair. I want to grow up and be tall like Mark.’

1

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

ON THE LOUNGEROOM WALL of our family home was a portrait. In the picture, Mum is sitting on the arm of our white vinyl couch dressed in a plaid suit. Not a hair is out of place. She is smiling and has her arm around my brother, Mark, who is seated next to her. Mark is dressed in his high school uniform and has a wistful expression. My two sisters, Louise and Jill, also dressed in their school uniform, are smiling shyly. And then there is me. I am sitting on Mum’s lap.

Whenever I look at this photograph I am transported back in time to a family who – just like any other – was less than perfect, but who loved me unconditionally.

Let me tell you about them. I’ll start with the matriarch. My mum was the queen of manners and etiquette. I’ve often jokingly referred to her as Mrs Bucket from the popular BBC TV series, Keeping Up Appearances. ‘No dear,’ the actress Patricia Routledge would say in her plummy English accent when taking phone calls in character. ‘It’s not Bucket, it’s Bouquet, Bouquet.’

This was my mum all over – right down to a slight English lilt. She even looked a little like Mrs Bucket, with her coiffured wavy brown hair and perfect grooming. Mum would never have gone out of the house looking shabby – nor would she have allowed us kids to go anywhere without our hair being brushed or our teeth cleaned.

I used to be frog-marched into Mum and Dad’s bedroom and positioned in front of the dressing-table mirror so I could comb my hair. Next, Mum would steer me to the bathroom to brush my teeth. If my appearance and my minty breath met her approval, I was allowed to go out and play. Heaven forbid I should go out in public with a rogue cornflake or rice bubble stuck between my molars or my hair sticking up. Looking back now, I reckon it was Mum’s way of protecting me in public, ensuring the cruel kids and knobs didn’t have more cannon fodder to use against me.

Mum was always very protective of me, which was completely different to her own experience growing up. One of four girls to Gordon and Una Massey, Mum was born and raised in Launceston, and says her childhood was ordinary and, at times, slightly sad and disappointing. Nana was never around much and liked doing her own thing, whether that was playing cards with friends or taking holidays in Japan or Victoria or wherever the hell she felt like going. Sometimes she’d leave my mum and her sisters in the care of strangers.

Before Mum was born, Nana took her eldest daughter, Molly, on a holiday to Melbourne. Her other daughter, Muriel, was just a baby so she remained home with Pop. Molly and Nana stayed at a boarding house in St Kilda near the beach. One day, a couple of guests from the boarding house were out walking and noticed three-year-old Molly playing on the sand alone.

‘Where’s Mummy?’ they asked.

Molly looked up at them puzzled.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered.

Worried about the child’s safety, the couple took Molly back to the boarding house. When they enquired as to where the mother was, they learned Nana had left Molly in the care of the boarding house supervisor. A stranger! She had taken off on one of her jaunts. Pop was contacted and had to come and collect his daughter. It was a pattern that continued throughout Mum’s childhood.

What’s more, Nana could be sarcastic and nasty. One time, Nana said to my mum and her sisters, ‘I only ever had you children so you could be my servants.’ She wasn’t joking.

With an absent mother and sisters she wasn’t particularly close to, Mum carved out her own life. She played the piano and continued to do so even when I came along. She loved cats and at the age of seven, got a cute little moggy of her own called Timmy. When I was growing up, there was always a cat in the house. Mum did well at school and at sport before pursuing a nursing career.

It was 1948 and tuberculosis had been running rampant in Australia. Mum was in her second year of nursing, caring for patients with the condition, when she herself contracted the disease. It was a long road to recovery and it meant the end of her nursing career.

Next, she went to work as a clerk for Ansett Airlines, which was located down town. It was there she met Don Fulton, my dad, who was tall and handsome with thinning black hair and Prince Charles’s ears. She was 19 and Dad was 25. According to my brother, Mark, Dad was an affable man who enjoyed telling a story and making people laugh. Perhaps that’s where I get my incredibly funny and modest sense of humour. Just saying.

Dad was one of nine children born to Arthur Jackson Fulton and Evelyn Ann Fulton, though one was stillborn. He spent the early part of his childhood in Derby, a tin mining town in the north-east of Tasmania. Arthur worked as a bookkeeper for the Briseis Tin and Mining Company, then one of the most profitable tin mines on the planet. These were boom days and the mine was producing 120 tonnes of tin per month and shipping it all over the world – until tragedy struck.

It was 4 April 1929. Black clouds scudded across the mountains dumping the heaviest rainfall on record – more than 450 millimetres that day. The Briseis dam started overflowing. Water gushed over the dam wall, now resembling Niagara Falls, and surged down the valley. At 4 pm, under the weight of 125 millimetres of rainfall into the catchment in just 90 minutes, the dam wall burst. A wall of water thought to be some 30 metres high shot down the mountain, uprooting trees and moving boulders.

The mine’s assistant manager, William Beamish, spotted the approaching tsunami. Instead of running to save his own skin, he chose to use what time he had to warn his workmates – my grandfather may well have been one of them, as he survived the disaster. While Beamish’s heroic act saved countless lives, the raging torrent swept him and 13 others away to their deaths.

Dad was six. It must have been utterly terrifying to witness such an awful event. He and his family were all safe. The modest house they lived in was on the hillside of the gully, away from the flood’s destructive path.

Incredibly, months later, another torrential downpour would fill the mine and again cause operations to halt. This finished off the tin mining, which was the life-blood of the community, forcing my grandfather and countless others to find work elsewhere.

The next stop for the Fulton family was Springfield, some 35 minutes away. In this small farming community they ran a general store, but who knew the Great Depression was just around the corner? As you can imagine, this had a devastating effect on my grandparents’ business. Of course, they weren’t the only ones affected as suggested by its name – the Great Depression – the effects were felt the world over. Simply surviving was the name of the game. Families were already self-sufficient, but the homegrown vegetables and chooks they kept had to stretch a lot further.

Forced to move again, the family relocated to Launceston. There, like many of his generation, Dad left school at an early age. At 14 or 15, he started a job changing tyres at Beaurepaires before he heeded the call to war.

Dad was 16 when Britain and France declared war on Germany and then two years after that, when Australia had declared war on Japan, he signed up for active duty.

With little training, and most likely ill equipped for jungle life, Dad was dispatched to Rabaul, a township on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, which at the time came under Australia’s jurisdiction. The role of the Aussie troops was largely to monitor Japanese activity in the Bismarck Archipelago and to prepare a suitable defence should Japan invade. Because my dad had a dodgy knee – which I remember from my childhood – he was given the task of driving the transport and supply trucks.

In terms of an Australian military operation, Rabaul was a disaster. Hence, you rarely hear about it in military history teachings. Too few troops were sent to Rabaul, and in the face of the overwhelming invading Japanese forces, numbering in the thousands, it was all but a lost cause. By the time the Japanese landed on 22 January 1942, the Australian troops were hopelessly outnumbered, and the Australian War Cabinet basically washed their hands of the whole operation. Everyday civilians and military personnel used a flotilla of vessels to rescue the 385 forsaken soldiers, who had managed to evade capture. It was a heroic act, which deserves more time and detail than I can give it here. But suffice to say, if it weren’t for those brave men and women, using their own initiative, it’s probable that many of those soldiers would have met a grisly death at the hands of the Japanese occupiers.

I’m not entirely sure how Dad made it back to Australia, but I do know he dodged death at least once. Years later, he’d enjoy telling us this story.

One night, he and a fellow soldier were driving a supply truck down a rutted muddy road when a Japanese Zero fighter plane strafed them. Fearing for their lives, Dad and his mate fled the truck and stumbled through thick scrub to a nearby bunker. In the dark and shit scared, Dad’s friend ran into a piece of rebar – a ridged steel rod for reinforcing concrete – that was sticking out of the ground.

He thought he’d been shot.

‘Shit, Don,’ he screamed. ‘The bastards have bushwhacked me.’

What eventually became of Dad’s friend, we don’t know – but we do know that despite him having a chuckle over this story, Dad had recurring nightmares for years afterwards. Mark says Dad would wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming, ‘Noooo!’ Dad told my brother he was having nightmares about people coming from the sky. These days, his night terrors might well be referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder.

When he met our strong and smart, blue-eyed mum, Dad had survived the war – but his most formidable adversary was yet to come.

Mum and Dad married at St John’s Chapel in Launceston on 8 September 1951 and honeymooned in Sydney. Three years later, Mum fell pregnant with my brother Mark.

With his choirboy looks and dancing eyes, Mark was the cheeky one in the photo and my hero. It was like in the TV show The Brady Bunch, where the boys in the family always looked up to curly-headed sensible Greg and the girls were enamoured with long-haired Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. In my family, I idolised Mark and the girls could well have been chopped liver. In my eyes, Mark was smart, capable, funny and clever. I worked this out because he knew how to do stuff, like kick a footy, build a billycart and ride a pushbike.

Also in the photograph are my two sisters, Jill and Louise, who both look as though they could be selling Girl Guide cookies to little old ladies. Louise, eight years older than me, was very protective when I was little. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with my dwarfism or simply because I was the youngest and most vulnerable member of the family. She left home when I was only nine or ten and married her teenage sweetheart, Mark. Consequently, I don’t have too many memories of Louise, other than to say she was probably the shy one of the family. Well, at least she was compared to our big brother. My other sister, Jill, closer in age to me, was feisty. Although you would never tell from this picture, as she looks as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, Jill was always lightning fast with a comeback, which was quite frustrating when the typical sibling rivalry arguments ensued.

Noticeably missing from the frame was our dad. Mum believes he might have been at the pub when this picture was taken. More about that later.

Without a doubt, the cutest one in the photo is me. But before going into how adorable and clever I am, let’s go back to the beginning of my story.

2

WELCOME TO THE WORLD

I WAS BORN ON 7 April 1964 in Launceston. At that time The Beatles were riding high on the Billboard Hot 100 charts; The Pink Panther, starring Peter Sellers, was making people laugh at the movies; John le Carré kept readers enthralled with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; and Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA award-winner Russell Crowe was also taking his first breath.

My entry into the world was without incident. Mum’s contractions began around midnight the night before her due date. After rolling over in bed somewhat uncomfortably and in pain, she eventually woke Dad. He stumbled out of bed, grabbed his trademark fedora hat and marshalled Mum and her already packed overnight bag into the chilly night air. Together they sped across town in our green and white FB Holden and pulled up under the portico of Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital. After opening Mum’s door and guiding her through the entrance and into the trusted hands of the nursing staff, Dad was told ever so politely, ‘We’ll take it from here, Mr Fulton.’

You see, this was the 1960s and, according to Mum, husbands weren’t welcome in maternity wards as they were considered to be a bit of a nuisance. Dutifully, Dad went back home to look after my siblings while Mum sweated, trembled and cried out for four hours on a metal-framed bed under fluorescent lights before I finally made an appearance.

Mine was an easy birth – at least that’s what Mum tells me – a lot easier than my brother, Mark, who was a forceps delivery. When she saw me for the first time, Mum thought I was on the chubby side but just ‘gorgeous’ (her words, not mine). Her only concern, if anything, was the size of my head. Perhaps it was rather big – certainly, it was bigger than she remembered with her other three children. But as Dr Sauer, her gynaecologist, said nothing and didn’t appear to be worried, Mum didn’t give it a second thought. We later learned that Dr Sauer was worried.

Throughout Mum’s pregnancy, which had been textbook, he had noted Mum’s smaller belly and had suspected something wasn’t quite right. But without all the whiz-bang technology we have today – ultrasounds, amniocentesis, DNA testing – his concerns would remain nothing more than a hunch.

It’s true; I would’ve looked different to the other babies on the ward. Babies born with my condition will have a larger head, a more pronounced forehead and shorter arms and legs. But nothing was said by any of the medical staff, so as far as my mum was concerned, I was a perfectly healthy baby weighing in at 9 pounds 2 ounces (4.1 kilograms).

Cradling me in her arms and staring into my tiny chubby face, Mum knew instantly what she’d call me.

‘Ian . . . I think we’ll call you Ian,’ she whispered, smiling.

Ian is the Scottish version of the name John, meaning ‘God is gracious’, but Mum, not being particularly religious, simply chose the name because it complemented my surname, Fulton.

I’m told Dad was chuffed when he saw me for the first time. After all, I was his second son. No doubt he celebrated my birth with the typical ‘wetting of the head’, a term used to describe proud fathers gathering at the pub to observe a new addition to the family. Other family members and friends visited Mum that week, including my nana and pop from my mum’s side.

My memories of Pop Massey are fragmented but there is one that is permanently etched in my mind. It’s of me crawling around on the floor at the age of about two and looking up to see my pop sitting on our white vinyl lounge looking down at me. I can still picture him today – a wiry man with a sun-wizened face wearing his fedora hat and smiling at me, his rheumy eyes twinkling with pride. He used to call me his ‘little rumin’, which means ‘little scallywag’. Pop was around a lot when we were kids because Pop and Nana subdivided their large suburban block in Trevallyn, a suburb of Launceston, gifting Mum and Dad the front half to build their dream home.

Mark recalls how Pop would come over for lunch on Sundays and the two of them would sit up on the couch and watch a series on World War I narrated by Michael Redgrave. Pop had enlisted in 1916 and was stationed to the 12th Battalion. Like many Australian soldiers in the Great War, Pop did his tour of duty in France and got shot – not once but twice. The first time, he was shot in the leg, so he was repatriated to England until he recovered and returned to the front line. The second time was during a routine patrol of the trenches to ensure the enemy was being kept at bay. Pop and his fellow soldiers were scurrying across the battlefield from one stinky, rat-infested, disease-ridden trench to another when – Bang! Bang! – Pop was shot in the shoulder, sustaining injuries so severe he was sent home.

Back in Tasmania, or Van Diemen’s Land as it was once known, Pop worked as a senior technician at the Postmaster General’s office, and on weekends went yachting with his older brother, Eric.

My Uncle Eric was a keen sailor. Every year for eight years, he and Pop tackled one of the most difficult ocean races in the world, the Sydney to Hobart. The two of them endured the 628-nautical-mile dash across the Tasman Sea and the formidable Bass Strait, a cold, choppy unforgiving stretch of water, but never secured a place. My dad once asked Pop why he bothered and apparently Pop flashed him a wry smile and said, ‘Because it’s the only place Una won’t go.’

Una was my nana.

Short and busty, with a mop of curly hair and pouty lips, Nana was born in 1892 and grew up in Penguin, a coastal town on the north-west coast of Tasmania. Her father, William, was a farmer and an authority on wool classing. Basically, he would advise the sheep farmers on the quality of their wool when preparing their sheep for overseas markets. Una was the eldest of five. According to Mum, she used to boss her three sisters around. It seems as though she was always a hard woman.

Tragically, her only brother, Stanley, died in a diving accident at the age of 25. She was living in the city at the time, having swapped the paddocks of Penguin for the lights of Launceston, where she married my pop at the age of 29.

There are so many stories floating around about Nana – some funny and some not.

On the day Mum brought me home after her stint in hospital, Mark, Louise and Jill were waiting to meet me. They had absolutely no idea I’d been born with dwarfism and the possibility wouldn’t have crossed their minds. Why would it? There was no known history of it in our family, although as I’ve since learned, there doesn’t have to be. When they looked at me, what they saw was an adorable, chubby baby brother.

‘Oh, he’s so cute,’ my sisters remarked.

Mark, older than me by ten years, had already decided we’d be great mates.

Two weeks later, my parents went back to see Dr Sauer, the gynaecologist, who conducted his routine exam and then suggested my parents make an appointment with Dr Spence, the paediatrician, as soon as possible. Mum had never been a big worrier, but there was something about Dr Sauer’s tone that alarmed her.

‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure, Mrs Fulton, but I think a visit to Dr Spence might just be a good idea.’

The paediatrician’s rooms were located in a red-brick art deco building in the middle of Launceston. On the day of the appointment, Mum and Dad carried me up the three short steps and through the doors that led to the doctor’s office. What was this about, they wondered.

Dr Spence cradled me in his arms, carried me to his examination table and took out his tape measure. He checked my body length, the length of my arms and legs and my head circumference. Then he placed me on the scales and noted my weight. Next, he pulled out his stethoscope and made sure everything was sounding as it should. Handing me back to my parents, he simply said, ‘I’ll be in touch shortly.’ That was it.

Two weeks later, my parents received a phone call from the receptionist inviting them back to the doctor’s office. When they arrived, Dr Spence sat them down, offered them a glass of water and began. ‘Mr and Mrs Fulton,’ he said, levelling his gaze over his elaborate wooden desk, ‘your son has been born with achondroplasia.’

Mum asked a raft of questions and Dad said nothing.

Dr Spence told them achondroplasia is the most common form of dwarfism. It results in the shortening of the long bones – the arms and legs – and enlargement of the skull. Dr Spence explained that achondroplasia was not usually detected until the third trimester of a pregnancy and is often confirmed at birth or later and that’s why Dr Sauer didn’t say anything.

Ashen-faced, my parents listened as Dr Spence outlined what the future would hold for me.

‘Ian will probably never grow much taller than 4 foot 2 [127 centimetres],’ said the doctor. I ended up stealing 6 inches (15 centimetres) more and topped out at 4 foot 8 (142 centimetres) and a bit. Oh, I am such a rebel.

‘Your son will likely face the stares and ridicule of others . . . and I’m sorry to say, Mr and Mrs Fulton, he may well be bullied at school.’ Mum and Dad sat in silence and then Mum asked the question that had been bothering her since the doctor had announced the news.

‘When it’s time, should I send Ian to a school for special needs children?’

‘Absolutely not, Mrs Fulton. Apart from his size, your son is perfectly normal in every other way.’

In heavy silence, Mum and Dad trudged back down the steps of the doctor’s office and out into the cold. Those rose-coloured glasses worn by parents of newborns were dropped and smashed on the pavement, never to be worn again. When they got home, Mum put the kettle on and slumped on the couch, wondering how she was going to break the news to my brother and sisters. She heard Dad heading towards the back door, his hat in his hand.

‘Where are you going?’ Mum asked.

‘To see my family,’ Dad said, and slammed the door behind him.

Dad and his family were very close. They had survived a natural disaster in Derby and the Great Depression, and they all lived within a few kilometres of each other. When he needed to talk things over, Dad often went to the matriarch of the family or my Uncle Dick.

‘What about me?’ Mum heard herself say quietly, her eyes moistening, but Dad was long gone. It would be much later that evening before he reappeared.

Hearing the door slam on that day in 1964, my three siblings bustled into the loungeroom looking concerned. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ asked Mark.

‘Oh, nothing, darling,’ Mum said, shaking her head.

‘There must be something wrong, Mum. What is it?’ Mark probed.

Motioning for my brother and sisters to sit down on the couch, Mum dabbed the corners of her eyes with a hanky and proceeded to tell them about the doctor’s visit and the diagnosis.

‘It’s your baby brother,’ she said shakily. ‘He’ll never be physically normal.’

Mum and Dad handled the news differently. While Dad was drowning his sorrows at one of the pubs he frequented in town, Mum was tormenting herself with thoughts that somehow, she was responsible for a condition she had never even heard of until Dr Spence dropped the bombshell. The only other person Mum knew of with achondroplasia was a short-statured man who also lived in Launceston. Mum had seen him walking around in town. For Mum, the weeks following the news were emotional. She placed her pregnancy squarely under the microscope. Was it something I ate? Perhaps it was that glass of wine I had with dinner. She wondered if she should have stopped working earlier and asked herself whether, at 34, she was too old or if, at 40, my dad was too old. She had read somewhere that the age of the father might be an influencing factor. But like most information back then, nothing was conclusive.

Then Mum recalled a prescription medication she’d been taking. Maybe that was it. She just couldn’t understand why I’d been born this way. Her pregnancy had been normal, and while she had had a small bout of morning sickness and moments of sheer exhaustion, there was nothing to indicate anything had gone wrong. Later, we learned Dr Sauer had seen a similar case in Adelaide, but not having had enough information at the time, had not mentioned it to Mum. Years would pass before she stopped beating herself up.

A week after Dr Spence’s revelation, Mum bundled me up and drove to the Launceston public library looking for answers. Google wasn’t yet available so information was often held in hefty encyclopaedias. After scanning the reference numbers, Mum hauled a hardback off the shelf, laid it flat on the table and flipped through the pages, keen to learn more about dwarfism and how to manage it.

Much of what she read reinforced what Dr Spence had explained. However, Mum had concerns that she never shared with others. Above all, she was terrified of what the future might hold for me and, in particular, how I’d go through life living with a disability.

Over the years, I’ve developed a clearer understanding about the condition I have. Achondroplasia results when a random mutation occurs in the fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 gene (FGRF3). It affects one in 25,000 births and occurs during ossification. In most cases, the gene has no impact on bone growth, but if the gene mutates and becomes active, it can result in shortened bones. In 80 per cent of cases, there is no family history. All four girls in Mum’s family were born without medical issues. Dad came from a large family and there was nothing of note on his side either.

Back in 1964 though, with the few available textbooks yielding hardly any information, Mum left the library without feeling enlightened about my condition. Still, she had made up her mind about one thing: she wouldn’t overcompensate for my disability and I wouldn’t be treated any differently to my brother and two sisters.

Well, my interfering nana had other ideas. When she learned of my dwarfism, she suggested that Mum should hide me away from the world. When Nana grew up, disabled people were often treated as a shameful secret and were segregated and institutionalised. In 2011, Channel 4 (UK) released a documentary revealing that the Queen had some mentally disabled first cousins who, in 1941, were banished to an asylum to spare the royal family having to face the ramifications. A few years later, before I started school,