IN MY LATE-TEENAGE years, I found myself for a time hovering on the border of bogandom. In those long-gone days of the mid-1980s, the bogans of Perth’s foothills could be identified by a clear dress code: flannelette ‘x-brand’ outer shirts, black T-shirts (often with the AC/DC band logo), black desert boots, black jeans and black heavy cotton ‘battle jackets’. And yes, the mullet was the preferred haircut.

The word ‘bogan’ itself was in common usage, but only to describe a kind of social identity and, as I recall, without any implicit disparagement. Bogans tended to be the toughest kids at my school and those most likely to get into physical fights, but my recollection is that they were not generally the bullies. Despite my weedy bookishness, I found myself in the bogan penumbra through some mates who were even more bogan than I was, including a couple who were the real deal – battle jackets and all. My no-doubt unconvincing foray on the fringe of boganness went as far as owning a couple of flannelette shirts and, in retrospect, the photographic evidence suggests a hint of mullet. I possessed at least one copied AC/DC cassette tape, with track titles carefully written out on the inner paper cover.