Nineteen fifty-six was going to be an important year for Australians. They eagerly awaited the much heralded arrival of television, and they anticipated with fervent and patriotic pride a plethora of gold medals at the Melbourne Olympics.

But in Cooma, life went on much as usual. It would be some time before they’d see television, and few would travel to Melbourne for the Olympics. They’d follow it like they did any major event, gathered around the wireless, listening to the ABC.

Progress on the Snowy continued. The fourteen-mile Eucumbene-Tumut tunnel ploughed its way relentlessly through the mountain, and new world records were set in tunnel excavation.

The water started slowly encroaching on Adaminaby. A dam wall over four hundred feet high would one day encompass a water capacity eight times as great as Sydney Harbour, and the doomed town would lie beneath a mighty lake.

There were changes in the workplace. Kaiser brought in thermoses to avoid billy tea breaks – and as fast as the Aussies busted them, the bosses replaced them.

For some there were events of more personal significance.

Cam Campbell and his sons won a record haul of ribbons and trophies in the Cooma Show of 1956.

Lucky married Peggy Minchin. Rob Harvey was best man and Ruth was Peggy’s sole bridesmaid; Peggy hadn’t wanted a fancy wedding. ‘I’d ask you to be matron of honour,’ she said to Ruth, ‘but the matron of honour has to be married, I’m told.’ Ruth kept the joke to herself; she didn’t share it with Lucky.

But the most important event on the calendar for Violet was July 26, her son’s first birthday.

Her mother Marge decided to make a party of that week’s Sunday roast in order to celebrate the occasion. Just family and a few close friends – best to have it on a Sunday, she said, so the men didn’t have to go to work.

This time they ate in the dining room, with the doors to the lounge room wide open in order to catch the heat from the open log fire. It was midwinter and it had been snowing heavily all morning.

With ten of them crammed around the eight-seater dining table, Marge wondered whether she should have got Dave to lift the kitchen table in as well. But no-one seemed to mind, so she stopped worrying.

She stopped worrying about the boys’ table manners too. Dave and Johnno were paying no deference to the fact they were in the dining room, spearing their spuds and meat with their forks although she’d pointedly handed them the serving spoons.

Marge let herself to relax. Everyone was having a very good time, and she was basking in the compliments coming her way. It was an excellent roast, if she said so herself, but then it was so easy now she had the new stove.

She felt very much the proud matriarch as she looked around the table; her sons on either side of her; Cam at the other end. Violet was seated to his left, Maureen to his right and the baby was sleeping in his bassinet nearby. Cam would turn to rock the bassinet every now and then, no doubt hoping the baby would wake up and give him a smile.

‘Don’t, Dad, you’ll wake him up,’ Violet said.

‘Sorry.’

God, but he was a sook of a grandfather, Marge thought.

Lucky and Peggy were seated on one side of the table, and opposite them was Ruth. Marge was pleased that she’d brought her friend Rob Harvey along – such a nice man. She hoped they’d get married; he was obviously dotty about her.

Marge liked Ruth immensely. Well, why wouldn’t she? she wondered as she glanced at her daughter, happy and healthy. Marge Campbell was more indebted to Ruth Stein than words could possibly express. In bringing Pietro’s killer to justice, Ruth Stein had saved Violet’s sanity. Funny, she thought, how she used to have a bit of a set against Germans – only because of the war, of course – and now there were two of them sitting at her table. Well, she wasn’t sure if Lucky really counted as a German. He’d hardly been one of the enemy – Lucky was a Jew. Fancy her grandson’s godfather being a German and a Jew. Who would have thought it? But then her grandson was half-Italian, wasn’t he? Who would have thought that too? My goodness, but the Campbell family was becoming sophisticated.

Marge stopped indulging herself, and tucked into her lamb, but she couldn’t help feeling proud.

After the roast, Maureen helped clear away the plates while the boys poured themselves another beer – Peggy and Ruth declining the offer – and Cam opened the champagne for the official toast, which would accompany the special birthday cake Marge had made for dessert.

Thank Christ Lucky and Rob Harvey had both brought along more champagne, Cam thought. He’d forgotten Marge had expressly told him to buy some, although he’d laid on plenty of beer.

‘Will you put out the sweets plates, Vi?’ Marge called as she followed Maureen into the kitchen.

Violet stood. ‘Don’t you wake him, Dad,’ she warned; she’d seen her father’s eyes flicker again to the bassinet.

She left, only to return empty-handed barely a minute later. Cam thought she was checking up on him. He was rocking the bassinet and the baby was awake, and he expected another reproach from his daughter.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ he protested. ‘He just woke up.’

But Violet didn’t notice. ‘It’s stopped snowing,’ she announced. ‘Come and look. Bring the champagne and glasses, Dad, we’ll do the toast outside.’ She picked up the baby and was gone. ‘Mum, Auntie Maureen,’ the men heard her calling to the kitchen, ‘it’s stopped snowing – come outside and look.’

They all joined Violet on the verandah where she stood with her baby in her arms, gazing at the virgin white landscape and the poplars draped in frozen lace. All was still and hushed, there was not a breath of breeze. The sun had come out and the snow that blanketed the valleys and the hills sparkled, fresh and unblemished, in the wintry light.

‘Isn’t it the most romantic thing you ever saw?’ Violet said.

Cam filled their glasses and proposed the toast to his grandson.

‘To Pietro Toscanini,’ he said.

‘To Pietro Toscanini,’ they responded as they clinked glasses.

The baby leaned back in his mother’s embrace, arms outstretched as if applauding. He was only hungry and ready for his feed, but the gesture seemed appropriate.

‘To the new generation,’ Ruth said.

‘To the new generation.’ They drank to that too.

It was just the beginning, Ruth thought.

Rob Harvey slipped his hand into hers. He wondered what she was thinking.

She smiled at him. She would tell him later.