This is the first piece in a summer opinion series from our writers about a year of their youth when they had trying times.

The boss was on the line with some urgent news: my transfer to the Canberra press gallery, every young reporter’s dream, was cancelled due to a “reorganisation”, which I think now was code for “the editor-in-chief doesn’t think you are up to it”.

So, how did Perth sound? Or (even worse) Adelaide, the city of churches and boredom?

I put the phone down, went out onto the street and cried.

Stephen Brook and Grant in 1998.Credit:

But to my surprise, everyone raved about Perth. It was fun, it was beautiful, Perth people were great, the Perth bureau was terrific. It was also newsworthy: home to Alan Bond, Lang Hancock, Gina Rinehart and the terrifying Claremont serial killer.

So, as a promising reporter of two years’ standing, and a not-at-all confident gay, Perth it was.

I arrived in April 1997, aged 23, knowing one person, whom I was replacing. For my first dinner Penny suggested a place in Claremont, down the road from the serial killer’s stalking ground. Back in Sydney, Mum was concerned, but Penny said: “You have got to live your life.”

So, I did. For two unforgettable years: I crisscrossed the state, covered courts, covered parliament, covered Pauline Hanson’s first federal election, made friends. I got my first mobile phone and my first boyfriend.

There were highs – I made the front cover of The Australian Magazine as the world’s most........

© The Sydney Morning Herald