THE AUSTRALIAN SENIORS MAGAZINE – ENTERTAINMENT – BOOK REVIEWS

“The Minchin family origins go back to the Cotswolds in England then onto Tipperary in Ireland when the family inherited an Irish castle in the 1700s.

But strong roots were spread in a very young Australia as they chased gold in first the Victorian goldfields then Western Australia.

The family’s century-long history with Australia is the focus of Ian Minchin’s family biography, Brothers In Arms.

The son of a Gallipoli veteran, Ian pulls no punches in his book. From a young boy’s trauma of sex abuse at the hands of someone outside the family to brother-versus-brother disputes, Ian does not hold back.

Meticulously documenting the anguish and drama of two generations of brothers at war — at Gallipoli and the Western Front, in Australian waters and on the battlefields of WWII — Ian weaves a tale so typical of Australian families of the times.

For example, recalling the end of rationing in 1947 and his parents’ surprise purchase of the family’s first refrigerator a year later he writes; “We have home–made ice cream with our deserts. It still is icy and not quite up to the Peters ice cream brick in the cardboard box but we consume every bit.”

There’s the games of cricket out in the street where kids from miles around join in, there’s the larrikin behaviour of knocking on someone’s front door and hiding in the bushes, squealing in delight as they open the door to no–one, and even the boys quietly sliding the bin out of old Ma Green’s outdoor dunny as she sits down to do her business.

Brothers In Arms is a story told from the heart, of a family doing their bit to make Australia what it is today.”