Graham Farmer - Early Life

Early Life

When Farmer was 21 months old, he and his brothers and sisters were taken to Sister Kate's home in Queen's Park, a church home "for the delicate, sick and destitute". Farmer said, "If it had not been for Sister Kate, I would have had an ice block's hope in hell of ever leading a normal life. I owe her and all her dedicated helpers everything – for giving me the chance to make something of myself. I was one of the lucky ones." A bout of poliomyelitis left Farmer with his left leg shorter than his right leg. According to Farmer, he was nicknamed "Polly the Parrot" as a six-year-old because people thought he chattered away like a parrot. At high school, Farmer was spotted by talent scouts for East Perth Football Club, and joined the team.

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