Port Kembla: A memoir is the story of a steel town and its movers and shakers like the entrepreneurial Hoskins and Ted Roach, the wharfies' leader, who were part of Port Kembla's rise to twentieth century industrial dominance. Pam Menzies follows three generations of her family, exploring lives lived in the shadow of the famous Steelworks, a busy Wentworth Street during its 1950s heyday, the waves of migrants who arrived seeking work, and the parallel lives of the Wadi-Wadi, the original inhabitants. She considers the reasons behind the town's decline and its prospects for a revitalised future.