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‘My dad had a big heart attack. I was 13 and I had to drive him to town in the car. I’d never driven the car before but I’d played with the pedals and the gears while it was in the shed. After the heart attack he couldn’t drive anymore and I had to drive my mum around. It was war time and a lot of kids had to do a lot of things they’d never done before. I used to have to take mum to the town so she could see dad in the hospital. I lived in a small town of only a few hundred people so I drove under the supervision of the town policeman until I was old enough to get a licence.’

This story and image featured as part of a series highlighting the housing affordability crisis in Sydney. Although he had six children, he lives alone in a converted garage (the room was not much bigger than his bed) in an old terrace house in the Inner West.

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‘I was born in Tanzania but Newtown was where I landed with my family when I was 8. It was our first encounter of Sydney and shaped our idea of Australia being this multicultural society and had a very positive impact. Newtown is a bubble but it shows that we have capacity to be that way as a whole. I feel like it reflects our best side and what we could be on a wider scale.

‘I came from a country where you just see one face so to speak which was my brownness.  That didn’t really mean anything until I came here.  When I came here I was different but there were just so many other differences that it was cool to be different. Newtown is a melting pot of cultures and demographics where we celebrate uniqueness and just being who you are.

‘I really believe in following my intuition and to follow what lights up my heart in whatever I do.

‘Follow your joy – go where you glow; go where you grow.’

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‘My partner Gary passed away in 1990 and left me $10,000 – but he said that I should use the money for my art. I was a butcher at the time and had been studying art as a hobby at night. I’d always wanted to go to National Art School so he left me the money and said I should apply and go. I got accepted and spent three years doing my Bachelor’s degree there and it was terrific.

‘It was the catalyst for me to be in the position in the art world I’m in today. I started the Lennox Street Art Studios 20 years ago with another artist called Steven Perrin. We now have 36 artists here. Gary would be so very proud of the studios – he’d be very, very happy.

‘For a city like Sydney, having accessible art studios like this is very important – there should be more of them. A city is not just big business – it’s about communities and being creative. Imagine a boring city with nothing but big business – how boring would that be? You need places like Newtown where there are creative people around and there’s variety in style.’