“I was born in Leichhardt, Sydney and when I was 3 we moved to Canberra where I stayed until my 40th year. My family comprised of Mum Caroline, Dad Charlie and my sister Cheryl who was 3 years, 3 months and one day older than me, I’m not sure why I am so precise with the age difference but that is how I always say it. Mum and Dad were great parents. My sister and I were as different as chalk and cheese and I was a total embarrassment to her. As my Dad used to say…She was a product of the 50’s and I was a product of the 60’s and they were very different eras. My sister was always well behaved and lady like and I was more a rebel. I was a naughty kid but I was never cruel or nasty, I just did naughty things. I look back now and think, actually I was a bastard of a kid.
When I was a teenager my sister used to do the dishes and help around the house and I didn’t. One time Dad told me I had to wash up or I couldn’t go out. I went into the kitchen and packed all the dirty dishes into the oven which was one of those old wood burning stoves. I sat there and smoked cigarettes until it felt like the time it would take to wash up and then I went out and forgot about them. The next morning there was a huge explosion. Dad had lit the fuel stove to make us breakfast. Every plate, pot, everything we owned was in that oven and had exploded. I was grounded forever but as usual I was such a pain my grounding only lasted a day.
My sister was always beautifully dressed and had nice clothes and of course I dressed in purple tights and a purple satin blouse with a Widgy hairdo (it totally looked like a birds nest). The Beatles came out so overnight I turned into a Mod so then I looked like Mary Quant. My sister got back at me though. She was a fabulous Hairdresser and I remember she got Apprentice of the Year. One day she came home and said, I’ve learnt how to cut hair. I had long hair and she cut it off within a centimetre of my head. She ran as soon as I took one look at it. In those days we wore hairpieces attached to a thick velvet ribbon so I lived in those till it grew back. My sister and I are really close NOW!
I remember the night I met my best friend, Denise Smith. She was 16 and I was 15. We met at Monaro Mall. She had the most fabulous Mod outfit on. A maxi skirt in beige, a smart blouse and a little waist coat. I thought she was the bees knees. We got up to mischief. We decided one night to go see The Throb who were a big band in the 60’s. There was no way Mum and Dad would let me go to Cooma so we said we were staying at each others houses. We got a guy from my school and I persuaded him to drive us to Cooma. When we got there he charged us petrol money which astounded me because just having us in his car should have been enough payment. We had to beg at the door to get in to see The Throb. They said the only way we could get in was if we GoGo danced on the stage. We thought all our Christmas’s had come at once. There we were on the stage with all the other girls. We had the best time. The following Tuesday my family is watching the news on the TV…Youth go Wild in Cooma and there’s Denise and I GoGo dancing on the news. ‘That’s not me, that was taken somewhere else’. I tried to lie but once again got grounded.
I was married and had my daughter at 17, my son at 20 and divorced at 23. That was a hard time but I always had the love and support of my family. I left school at 15, worked in secretarial roles and in 1974 my life changed. I was the Secretary for the Director of The Smith Family in Canberra. I was called to the office and thought I was being sacked for talking too much. In I go and they said they wanted me to consider going to TAFE to do a Welfare Diploma. When you leave school at 15 you feel like you are really stupid. I felt really dumb. Whenever I was in the presence of someone with a University Degree I felt even dumber. I didn’t think I could do it but they did. I found my reason for living and it changed my life dramatically from then on I loved and felt I’d found my calling. I did 3 years and graduated. In my second year I was offered a job as a Welfare Officer at Smith Family and went on to work with the Director of the Financial Counselling Service which was the very first Financial Counselling Service in Australia. That took me into working in a drug and alcohol environment for 7 or 8 years.
In 1987 HIV/AIDS started to be known in Australia and I began working in that area. My first position was a National position where I went around Australia running workshops in HIV/AIDS prevention. I also went to Thailand and Malaysia as part of that role, that was an incredible 18 months of my life. I learnt so much during those early years of HIV/AIDS by Gay men who took me through the most amazing experiences and learning around being non-judgemental, being open to sexualities and all of that. It was a confronting, humorous and astonishing education.
I was offered work in Alice Springs in the HIV/AIDS Prevention Unit, I was turning 40 that year. My husband Tony who I had met in Canberra in 1979 and I went to Alice Springs where I had a 2 year contract to work in the Centre, Tennant Creek and out to remote Aboriginal communities, some were 8 hours out from Alice. They were amazing years and I feel so privileged to have worked there. I learned so much from every member of the team including the traditional Aboriginal staff. Being in such a small town had it’s challenges. I remember when people came to me for counselling who had been newly diagnosed with HIV I wanted to set up a support group. Unbeknown to me or the other people involved they all knew each other. It turned out to be great as they were extremely supportive of each other.
At the end of my contract I could have stayed but Alice is a really challenging place to live and work because it’s a long way from everything. I wanted to be closer to see Mum and Dad and my kids more.
While I was In Alice Springs, I applied for a job at SHAIDS here in Lismore in 1992 working in sexual health and got it. I worked alongside all the mob from ACON (The AIDS council) and it was like a massive family and we made lifelong friends. In Lismore was the beginning where I started to experience deaths from AIDS and it was a very difficult time. Being invited to be part of peoples dying process is such a privilege and I really can’t thank those beautiful people enough for sharing their experiences with me. There was a lot of grief and loss. Some families didn’t even know their sons were gay and then to find out their son was dying. They were challenging times but the most remarkable times around death, grief and loss. That’s what brought me to the Northern Rivers.”