It’s funny how time catches up with you, unscheduled moments forcing you to pause and reflect on how far you’ve travelled. One of those pauses came for me in the early hours of today, when I heard the news that Robert Redford had died. Yes, he was genetically blessed and ridiculously good-looking, loved by women the world over, but he was also an amazing actor, director, founder of the Sundance Film Festival and later the Sundance Institute, and a lifelong environmentalist.

To me, he represented much of my teenage existence and, along with a few significant teachers, led to me searching for more in life than what my surroundings suggested I was entitled to.

Love at first sight (for this kid from the western suburbs) … Robert Redford with Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were.Credit: Getty Images

Growing up in Sydney’s western suburbs in the 1960s and ’70s was a tough gig for many. Newly constructed suburban streets surrounded by factories, fibro homes and vast tracts of undeveloped land. Working-class Anglo-Saxon and newly arrived migrant families sweltered in the summer heat and braved frosty winter mornings. Air-con was a foreign concept. Cultural pursuits were often out of reach – because of the financial constraints and, literally, the distance from that culture.

Upon hearing of Redford’s death, I recalled the first time I was allowed, at 13, to travel by train into the city with a........

© The Sydney Morning Herald