Terry Hogan describes his early life and schooling in Cowra in central New South Wales. He traces his family's relocation in the mid-1960s to Grafton in the state's north, and his later moves to Canberra and then to Armidale to undertake tertiary studies at the University of New England. He remembers working as a research assistant at UNE when in 1975 the Whitlam Government was dismissed.