Lyle Courtney, the youngest of eight siblings, was born into a comparatively well-off family in Maryborough, a Victorian goldfields town, during The Great Depression. His mother died three weeks after he was born. When Lyle was five years old the family lost their house, causing their father to throw convention to the wind and retreat with the children to a tent-camp in the bush. Set against an ever-changing background of the beauty, wonders and vagaries of nature, OUR HOUSELESS HOME is a warts and all narrative. It portrays the challenging and whimsical lifestyle of a poverty-stricken family making do in those hard times.