These cottages in Williwa Street Portland, on the edge of the cement works site, have been derelict for as long as I can remember, since the mid 1970s at least. But in 1950, when the cement works were in full swing and my grandfather William (Billy) Milliss was the foreman, my parents lived there and I was probably conceived there although I was eventually born in Sydney. Or as my mother always said, she lived there but my father lived across the road in “the Coro”, the Coronation Hotel. My father had not had the worst of wars but his WWII wasn’t that good either and I guess like so many others he dealt with it through alcohol.
What do you think?