Jane Clifton, Melbourne-based actress, singer and ex-Prisoner star, has written a vibrant and conversational memoir retracing her visits to all the houses she has ever lived in. Born in 1949 on the Rock of Gibraltar, Clifton was an ‘army brat’ and, with her parents and three sisters, moved often around Europe and Asia, becoming well-travelled long before she was 16 years old.

Born into an eccentric family prone to embellishments and forsaking truth for fun, Clifton’s parents also died relatively young, before she was of an age to ask about the finer details of her childhood. Her journey is an attempt to find the truth, to find herself, in amongst her memories of ‘home’. Her first orgasm, her first childhood sweetheart, her love for her father and lurking uncertainty about her mother, her delight and despair at continually working to fit in with new countries, new houses, new schools, new rules – we marvel as she resiliently keeps going. Arriving in Perth in 1961, the young Jane had no idea of the permanence of her father’s retirement from the Army and their migration to Australia.

[[clifton-jane]]

In conducting this trek, Clifton also charts the social history of the post-World War II period. By detailing the homes she lived in from memory, and then re-visiting the addresses as they are now, architectural, cultural, political and economic changes are conveyed in the ever-hopeful and irrepressible voice of a tour guide. And Clifton as tour guide is engaging and lively company.

For lovers of Melbourne, this book holds a particular pleasure, as Clifton hits Melbourne in 1965. This later section forms a wonderfully idiosyncratic look at the city’s development over the last 45 years. From university to motherhood to imagining her final resting place, Melbourne forms Clifton’s final, much-loved ‘home’.

Pip Newling is a freelance writer and works at Readings Hawthorn. You can follow her blog