Peter Beattie: The boy behind the man behind the watermelon smile

PETER Beattie has published two autobiographies, but neither reveals much about his childhood. Perhaps that’s because there are aspects of it he’d rather forget.

IT’S a decade since Qweekend’s Matthew Condon teased out the early life of Peter Beattie, the porky seven-year-old sent to live in North Queensland with a gossipy, God-fearing grandmother.

Condon’s 2005 article detailed a childhood that perhaps the then premier of Queensland would rather forget.

TAP HERE FOR THE FULL STORY

He would later tell Condon that of all the profile pieces written about him, this was the one he kept.

Condon wrote: “For most of us, childhood becomes more idyllic the further we move away from it. Peter Beattie is no exception.”

“The reality, however, was far from rosy ... and infinitely more complicated.”

To help celebrate 10 years of Qweekend we’ve packaged together this and other award-winning stories and photographs which have informed, inspired and entertained Queenslanders for a decade.