John Arthur Parer, 'little grand' the aventurer

John Arthur was the man with the bright ideas and everyone loved him for his eccentricities. 

He married Teresa Carolin and had five children: Fonsi, Stan, Doreen, Cyril, Benedict, Adrian and Damien. All were very clever children. 

John was very good at maths and he really believed he could break the system of gambling. He went to Montecarlo several times and left his children with Michael’s family, so the two families grew up together. But the children were very clever and succeeded in their professional lives. Stan worked with his cousin Leo at Stanford X-ray. At the beginning of World War II they had a contract with the government to develop a new 35mm x-ray. Bernard and Cyril worked on the plantation in New Guinea. Adrian became a Franciscan priest, called Father Ferdinand. And Damien became a well recognised photographer due to his passion for photography. In fact, it is said it was thanks to his dad John that Damien got into photography professionally. John met Charles Chauvel, a famous Australian film producer, on the train from Sydney to Melbourne and John told him about Damien’s interest in photography. Chauvel invited him to watch the filming of his current film, and eventually offered him a job. There Damien met Ron Maslyn Williams and eventually got a job at the Australian Department of Commerce film unit in Melbourne. From there, a prosperous career in war photography started and Damien’s work brought the name Parer to everyone’s mouth once again!