Heart of the nation: Faulconbridge Lookout 2776

DEPRESSION-era baby Harl Mallam wanted to live on the land, but circumstances led him to becoming a member of the Mounted Police.

Blue Mountains

HARL Mallam was born in 1934, just as Australia was emerging from the Great Depression, and he grew up on a farm at Eden Creek in northern NSW, milking the cows by hand before school and ploughing the paddocks with horses.

It was a hard life, but it was all he ever wanted to do. After National Service in the Air Force, he even turned down a job offer as a trainee pilot in order to return to the land. Then he met Marie at a dance; they married when she was 18, and for the first three years they lived and raised an infant son, Paul, in a canvas tent in woop woop along the Queensland border, where he was a cattle tick inspector.

Aged 27, while working on a friend's sheep property and trapping rabbits as a sideline, Harl faced up to a difficult truth: without the money to buy into land, his dream of one day becoming a grazier was just that, a dream. So he and his young family decamped to Sydney with his parents' Depression-era wisdom ringing in his ears: Get a government job, something safe and secure, with superannuation. He joined the Mounted Police in Redfern, where his duties ranged from directing cars ("There were no traffic lights until the late '60s," he says) to leading guards of honour during visits by the Queen and US President Lyndon Johnson. After 14 years he transferred to general police duties, working his way up to become Chief Inspector at Bondi before retiring at 60.

Harl and Marie have seven grandchildren and live in Sydney's eastern suburbs. This shot of him - a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize - was taken in the Blue Mountains by his son Paul, who's now an artist and lawyer. The mounties' parade uniform holds special memories for Paul and his two siblings, who as children would spend days polishing dad's boots, buckles, buttons and tack in the lead-up to the Royal Easter Show, where the prize for best-turned-out officer was fiercely competitive.

What did they get in return? "Nothing!" says Harl, who seems surprised by the question. "Kids just did what they were told in those days."