I've had letters from readers in South America, England, Ireland, Austria, the US, New Zealand, and even Jamaica asking me about Over the Top with Jim. Is Jim real? Some people think it was all made up. But these are real people from my life and here are the photos to prove it.

I also got letters from America after my autobiography Vietnam A Reporter's War was published in New York.

The Lunn family: Fred and Olive at the back, Grandpa and Grandma in the middle. Me and my big brother Jackie. The girls Gay and Sheryl are out the front of course, in ribbons.

It must have been really cold where Jim and his brothers came from up in Harbin, northern China.

This was their winter school uniform with overcoats and Cossack caps. When it was really cold in Brisbane we wore windcheaters.

I called them the Brothers Jim because they reminded me of those Russian dolls, but they were also a bit scary.

Learning to tap dance is much harder than it looks. When I wrote the play of Over the Top with Jim, Bille Brown the director (he's acted in Fierce Creatures, and Oscar and Lucinda and as Oscar Wilde) had the idea of putting a tap-dancing boy on stage as my sort of alter ego, or spirit. So there were two Hughies in the Play: his body and his soul. It sold out.

These three boys from junction Park State School made their own bows and arrows. Brian Kenwrick, on the left, still has his (and his canoe).

Annerley Junction sure was a dangerous place in the 1950s.

The trip to Melbourne in 1954 was a big event. Even though the car was full, Olive insisted on packing the ballgowns she'd made for Gay and Sheryl to wear to the convent ball. The Zephyr Six Mark I was all stacked up like a two-storey car with Olive's kapok mattress on the top like a big white blancmange, ready for the trip to Melbourne. We camped all the way and people tell me this is their favourite chapter in the book.