Gary Hipworth, 69, has overcome a lifetime of adversity.

His brother was murdered, his mother took her own life and his sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia before dying after sticking a pair of scissors into her eye and head.

Her son, Gary’s nephew, then took his life as well.

Incredibly, the 69-year-old business consultant has survived and flourished. He believes it’s because of his research into Buddhism and the human condition that he’s The Last Man Standing, the title of a short film about him made by documentary-makers PLGRM.

Gary and his siblings grew up in Braybrook, a deprived suburb in Melbourne’s west previously nicknamed “Victoria’s Bronx” and one of the most disadvantaged in the state.

Their father Len, who married their mother Lorraine at 18, struggled with a “volcanic temper”, a gambling addiction and bringing up three children with very little money.

“The first memory I have is of lying in bed hearing my mum screaming and being bashed,” Gary told news.com.au. “One time he erupted, he grabbed my mum by the hair and threw her into the mud.

“It was a pretty miserable childhood. When you witness things like that, it touches you in a place that’s hard to explain.”

The father and business consultant suffered major trauma during his childhood, which destroyed his family.Source:Supplied

Gary’s father Len, left, was violent towards his mother Lorraine, right, and his two sons.Source:Supplied

At night, Gary would go to bed with “this awful feeling in my guts” and listen to his dad shouting: “That’ll teach you to do as you’re told, Lorraine, you f***ing shut up!”

He and his brother Ray would get hit just for looking at their dad wrong, or the breakfast table would get overturned and eggs and crockery smashed all over the wall. His uncle would sometimes come to visit, and on hearing screams from the corner of the street, turn and run.

“It sends shivers down my spine,” says Gary. “I hated my father.”

The Hipworths weren’t the only ones on their block with these sort of problems. Everyone in Braybrook was scrimping and fighting to survive. If they weren’t trying to stop the warfare between their parents, Gary, Ray and their sister Cheryl would be listening to other neighbours fight, or dodging a brick that came flying through a window.

“You couldn’t relax for one second,” says Gary. “My relief was school. I loved learning, that was my salvation.”

When Gary was nine, his father left, but his mother had a series of other abusive partners — one who piled all her clothes up and set fire to them in a jealous rage, and another who would prowl around outside with a gun. For most of the family, the pain was too much to bear.

Ray was killed at 32, Cheryl died three years ago after she stuck a pair of scissors into her head and Gary is the last sibling left.Source:Supplied

He says his daughters, Marnie and Trudie, are his greatest achievement.Source:Supplied

“Ray was the first to have his life snuffed out,” says Gary. His younger brother was stabbed to death just outside his home at the age of 33. No one was ever convicted of the crime.

It tore their mother apart. “Not Ray,” Lorraine begged her eldest son. “Why couldn’t it be me?”

She was taking a large number of painkillers, according to Gary, and the doctors decided to cut off all her medication. Soon afterwards, she took her own life, aged 69.

“I was really angry with her because she didn’t give me a chance to say goodbye,” he says now.

Then it was Cheryl’s turn. Having had a son by a married man aged 16, she had brought up Carl with the help of her mother and Ray.

After Ray died, Cheryl started having hallucinations and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed on a cocktail of drugs. Two of her children were taken away and her first son Carl — a “lost soul” — took his own life too.

“I began to receive what I believe are messages from my dead brother,” a haunted-looking Cheryl tells Gary in a home video clip used in the documentary.

“I visited my mother’s home and gave to her a message from Ray, one of love and reassurance. So she rang a doctor to give me a valium injection, They had me incarcerated in Footscray Hospital that night.

“When we’re first incarcerated, the medication is quite horrific. It’s in large doses and it completely disables you. The medication gives you a voracious appetite, and you eat everything in sight. It affects the heart, the lungs, it feels like you’re in a straitjacket.

“It’s something you’re always hoping you’re going to work your way out of it, but you know if it remains the way it is that you’d rather not be around.

He attributes his survival to a deep examination of the human condition.Source:Supplied

“One psychiatrist told me I was lucky because if it had been 100 years ago, somebody like myself would be in chains underground.”

Three years ago, Cheryl thought she heard a voice from God telling her that if she had the guts to pluck out her eyes with scissors, he would save humanity and return her sight. She managed one eye, before sticking the scissors into her head.

After six months in hospital, she died from an infection in the wound. She was 64.

Gary had long since fled town. “I wanted to get as far away from Braybrook as I possibly could,” he says.

Now he truly is the last man standing in a family dogged by terrible suffering. Yet he refuses to be a victim or give in to self-pity, as he puts it.

He puts his strength down to a fascination with humanity, and has spent his life studying mental health, psychiatry and medication, delving into his father’s troubled childhood to make sense of his own.

“I’ve tested out a lot of the theories, Buddhist meditation and a lot more,” he says. “I think there’s a massive gap in our education system on the human condition and what it means to be human. What are we born into?

“It’s all interrelated. The ripple effect. You can get through any tough time ... nothing is permanent.

“I’m not moralising. I know how hard it is to stand on your own two feet.”

Gary’s now preparing for retirement by the sea in Point Lonsdale (“one of the best places on earth”) with his wife of 26 years, Jo, who he credits with teaching him to trust people.

He has two daughters from his first marriage, Trudie and Marnie.

“The proudest thing I’ve done is broken the generational leap of violence,” he says.

“It’s fantastic to see how well adjusted they are, these daughters of mine, and how they’ve brought up their own kids.”

If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Samaritans on 13 52 47.

If you are affected by domestic violence, call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

If you are dealing with an issue relating to mental health, see Beyond Blue for a list of organisations that can help.

Visit the PLGRM website to watch the full documentary.