ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Holidaying with parents up the coast, recent high school graduate Hannah Harper spend an idle minute twirling the sunglass rack around at the local service station – browsing for something adult, yet timeless.

Finally settling on a pair of seriously radical reflective sunnies, the 18-year-old pulled a crisp Banjo out of her Paul Frank wallet and paid the gentleman behind the counter.

“They’re not raybans, but they’ll do,” she said. “At $9.95 you simply cannot do better than a pair of aviators. Angelina Jolie wears aviators because she’s an actual aviator. Just like my grandpa. He shot down six Germans during the war, so funny because you wouldn’t pick it.”

With the purchase of the aforementioned sunglasses, the former South Betoota Grammar School pupil’s aviator sunglasses phase has been heralded in.

Typically known as a key developmental phase in a young woman’s early adulthood, the stage in a girl’s life that’s accompanied by a set of banging aviators lasts around 2 to 3 years until she wakes up to herself and buys some real eyewear.

Speaking candidly to The Advocate this afternoon, Hannah’s mother, Morag (32), told the growing media scrum outside the service station that she was proud and excited for daughter.

“She’s been through a lot, young Hannah,” she said. “From that evil Kerri-Anne Wesser from West Betoota teaching her how to take the element out of a lightbulb to use for Christ knows what, to her younger sister getting arrested for stealing car radios.”

“If all I need to worry about with Hannah is her fugly sunglasses and pack-a-day smoking habit, then I guess I’ve done my job as a parent.”

More to come.