Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery

Hello, and welcome to the final series

of Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery.

I don't believe it. It is.

Over the last decade, I've had the absolute joy of taking people

to their first homes...

This, is it!

There was a tiny kitchen over here...

..their schools...

Mrs Tillick, who loved me, got me into huge trouble,

and I deserved it.

..and the places that have shaped them.

The most awful, excruciating experience in my whole life.

My home.

It's been eight series of surprises...

Hello! Hello!

..fun. Come on!

Oh, God... ..and crunched gears.

Boys...

Can we just give it a push? Yeah, give it a push.

We're back for one last trip down memory lane...

I got busted totally in this toilet.

..and I can't wait.

I'm so excited!

I'm in Sutherland, part of the Dharawal nation,

to meet a giant of Australian television.

He's covered stories that have shaped nations,

interviewed everyone who matters

and is still very much part of the conversation

about who we are as a people and a country.

It's the unstoppable Ray Martin.

It's like you've done it your whole life.

There you go. Oh!

Ray, come on out so we can see you.

How delightful!

How about this for our first date?

I mean, I'm very impressed. Amazing, eh?

What do you call this car? This is a Citroen.

A Citroen. And it's a Light 15.

Yes.

And about the time that I was living around here,

my Dad used to sell them, but I never drove one.

I'll try and open it. There we go.

Thank you so much, Mr Martin. My pleasure.

How delightful.

I should have been proper and opened it for you.

This is the first car we've ever had

with a door that flips the other way.

So, how much fun is this?

I know!

He got a billion hits.

Here we go.

Tom Uglys Bridge. I love it.

Ray Martin started as a trainee at the ABC in 1965.

Four years later, he became the ABC North American correspondent.

One thing is certain, the war in Vietnam has become once again

the number one political issue in the United States.

He was lured back to Australia in 1978

to be part of the original 60 Minutes line-up,

with George Negus and Ian Leslie.

I'm Ray Martin.

Those stories, and more, tonight on 60 Minutes.

For the next three decades, he was a staple on the Nine Network,

scoring a haul of five gold Logies.

He hosted the SBS documentaries, First Contact

and Look Me in the Eye,

and showed a willingness to send himself up

with the ABC's lockdown satire, At Home Alone Together.

Coming up, what do you do when you want to wash your hands,

but you're not near a sink or a basin?

Well, in-built soapy pockets.

In go the hands,

splashy, splashy, splashy,

out they come,

good as gold.

I'll show you how to build them into your entire wardrobe,

so you know that you'll always be germ-free.

Dammit!

I could have used the sink.

I do believe this is the fanciest car in 77 episodes.

Well, you deserve it. Oh... Thank you, I do.

It's beautiful.

So, tell me the story behind this car.

Your dad sold them?

So, we're talking about the early 1950s, and he used to bring it home.

He was a salesman for Citroen.

So, at weekends, he'd bring it home, and I'd go driving,

and when you think, you're a 10-year-old boy,

we once did 80Ks, or he did,

going down the mad mile, just near here,

and I thought, that's supersonic, no humans are meant to go that fast.

And do you remember driving around here as a young man?

I do. The picture theatre was here in Sutherland,

and so my father convinced me...

We could only afford to go downstairs, and, um...

Oh, was it more expensive upstairs?

Yeah, more up, so in the dress circle was more expensive.

Oh, in the dress was more expensive.

So every Saturday, my sister and I would come here

to the picture theatre, here in Sutherland,

but the old man convinced me that upstairs you saw it in black...

..in colour. Oh!

Movies were colour upstairs, and black and white where we were,

and I believed him.

Oh, my God!

Oh, that is a good trick!

He had a good sense of humour,

and I was putty in hands.

I was an easy target.

And what was Sutherland like, back then, in the '50s?

It was the end of the train line...

Oh. ..for most people.

We shifted here to the Housing Commission, a house at Jannali.

This was next to Jannali,

and it was all bush, and we were close to the beach.

I thought we'd gone to heaven.

Also, it was down here, in 1954, when the Queen came out,

the first time to Australia.

I came with my primary school,

and we spent four or five hours in the blistering sun without hats,

in those days, waiting for...

Her Majesty. ..Her Royal Majesty,

and himself to arrive.

So, we're here in 1954, the Queen's come to Australia,

it's a huge event.

I'm about 10.

We're bussed out here,

and there's thousands and thousands of school kids,

waiting for the Queen, for Her Majesty to come this way

in the Governor's Roller, an open-top Roller.

So four or five hours later, we hear the noise,

and the flags are down there, and, like, we can see it all going,

it's all about to happen.

So I get in my schoolbag, somewhere in there is the Union Jack,

not the Australian flag,

the Union Jack, can you believe?

So I'm fishing around for the Union Jack, and I can't find it,

and I get down there, and suddenly, she's gone.

The Roller with Philip and the Queen go by,

all I see is their backside.

And I've got my flag but they've gone!

I've had four hours and I missed her.

And is that the first time you experienced disappointment

in a news story, when you just missed the moment?

Now, remember, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Republican,

so it was probably the best thing that could ever happen.

Oh, so close to greatness yet so far.

Story of my life.

We're in Jannali now.

You bet.

So now we begin the Housing Commission area here...

Right. ..and it went...

So this was First Avenue, so we were on Second Avenue,

and again, the Housing Commission was so innovative and so daring,

it went First, Second, Third, down to about 20th Avenue.

Here we go. This is Second Avenue.

Wow!

Julia, it's amazing.

Is it amazing? Yeah, it's amazing to come back.

There you go. We're here. Oh, how gorgeous!

It's gorgeous.

Has it changed much?

This was a dirt road.

So, this was a fibro house.

Every house was like this one.

So, we played cricket on the road,

we had a front fence.

Dad was a very handy tradesman, as a mechanic,

but he built a fishpond there, a stone fishpond

that was the, pretty much, the best thing in the block,

and Mum was really green-fingered, so she had the best garden.

What are you feeling, knowing you're about to go in?

Well, it's weird.

It was fibro, it's been beautifully clad, and looks, um,

it looks better than it did in my days.

But I didn't believe you could get something flasher than this

when I was eight.

Shall we go in? Love to, love to.

Lead the way.

I, honestly, I haven't been back here for 60-plus years.

Wow!

Is and was the lounge room.

Oh, gosh!

Now, obviously it was radio,

and the biggest thing in our world was Pick a Box with Bob Dyer,

the quiz shows, that we used to sit as a family around here and, er,

and that was, that was it.

I remember once, my old man smoked, and, er,

he had a bit too much to drink,

and had a smoke and set the lounge on fire...

No. ..one Saturday night,

so we had to throw the lounge out the front there.

But I remember that, seeing this lounge.

There was Mary, your mum, George, your dad,

Lorraine, Kay, Joyce.

What was the pecking order for you?

I was the youngest. Were you?

So, I had three older sisters and I was the prince of the family.

So, I had Mum, and three, four...

Now when people say they're the prince, were you really, like,

were you just doted on?