Discretion is advice.

This is a minute burn.

1930, Perth, Western Australia.

A young unmarried couple sat with the decision to make.

Vivian Cook, a local shop assistant, and his girlfriend, Christine Edgar, a young woman

originally from Scotland, had found out that Christine was pregnant.

Times being what they were, both Vivian and Christine felt like their hands were tied,

and quickly got married so that their child would not be born out of wedlock.

But their marriage was far from a match made in heaven. Vivian had a mean and violent streak, and when his first child,

Eric Edgar Cook, came into the world in February 1931, that violent streak only grew worse.

Vivian was known to drink heavily, and when he drank, he often beat his wife Christine.

When Eric became old enough to start to try to protect his mother from his father,

he beat Eric as well.

Christine took to sleeping in the staff room in her workplace to try to avoid going home to her husband.

And, even though he was still only a child,

Eric took to the streets to do the exact same thing,

avoid his father. He sometimes chose to sleep under the house, or just stayed up all night

walking around the neighborhood so that he didn't have to go home. But to say that Eric chose

to stay out on the streets isn't entirely accurate either.

He'd been born with a cleft lip, which had left him with a speech impediment and a slight disfiguration on his face, even after two surgeries.

The other children in his school and the neighborhood bullied Eric because of these differences,

meaning that Eric had no friends and nowhere to go when

...