1 Hothersal St, Kiama
South end of Bombo Beach, off Gipps St, at the creek end of Hothersal St.
Charmian was born in Kiama on the 30th August, 1923. She was the third child to Sydney and Amy Clift (nee Currie). She had an older sister Margaret and an older brother Barre. The family home from 1916-1937 was the very last house on the left side of Hothersal St heading north, right next to the creek. The road was known as Sydney Road as it was the highway into Kiama from the north. The Clift's house was the last house in the municipality of Kiama, which added to Charmian's general feeling of having 'outsider status'. The house was a primitive single-storey weatherboard cottage (the last one (in a line of cottages that were built for the quarry labourers).
Syd Clift was a senior engineer at the quarry and could have lived in a much nicer home, but he chose to live with the workers in these rough cottages.
The family lived here until Charmian was 14 years old.
Today the house is a double-storey blue coloured weatherboard house that has been renovated from the original single-storey cottage.
Audio passage: Charmian Clift, 'The End of the Morning', unpublished typescript, Charmian Clift Collection, National Library of Australia.