It's 1957 and Barry has been sent to stay with Nan and Pop during the school holidays while his mum waits for the new baby. Barry is six and-three-quarters and 22 Miller Street - the last house Pop built on the West Preston street - proves full of novel experiences: there's going shopping across the Hump at dawn with Nan ('good isn't it, height,' she says, advising him 'you can look at the stars for nothing'); keeping Pop company in the shed, where he goes for his smoko; sharing a bed with great aunt Bess (whose Anzacs are 'an indestructible mixture of oats, molassess, wheatgerm and pure will').