The autobiography begins at his birth. Albert Barnett Facey was born in Maidstone, Victoria, Australia, in 1894, the youngest of seven children. His father died in 1896 of typhoid fever after moving to the Goldfields of Western Australia with Bert’s two eldest brothers. In 1898, Bert's Grandpa became ill and died in October that year. Bert's mother then left the rest of her children to be looked after by their grandmother Mrs Jane Carr (born 1832 – died 1932), to go to the Goldfields, but met and married another man and had nothing further to do with Bert's upbringing. In 1899 Bert moved from Victoria to the Goldfields in the care of his grandmother, together with three of his six older siblings: Roy, Eric and Myra.