I am the child of a Kmart Manager, born in Brisbane but I went to 8 different schools and when I was 14 we moved to Lismore. Dad was the Kmart Manager here in Lismore for a year and then we moved again.
When my husband and I had our first child we wanted to be somewhere where we could watch our kids and have a sense of understanding of what’s going on in the community, so we moved down here and settled in Lismore. Morgan was born in Brisbane and Dave was born down here. I’ve been here for 25 years now. My Husband was from Nth QLD and he trusted me that this would be home. I had such fond memories of living in Lismore for that year as a kid. I met a young woman who is still my best friend, for 40 odd years. I remembered having the experience of going downtown, you’d do something and your parents knew about it before you got home. I wanted to bring my kids up in that environment, somewhere where the community looks out for each other and it has been all that.
I started work at the Sexual Assault service and I’ve been working here for 25 years. I started as a general Counsellor and I co-ordinate the safety action meeting response for health in Lismore now so I’m still working in that Domestic Violence and abuse area and I still love my job. It’s important work, particularly in the world we’re living in now where a minimum of one woman a week is being murdered in their homes by their partner or their ex partner. One in 4 women will be sexually abused.
It’s incredible that we live in a world that promotes equality and at the same time you are at most risk from someone who allegedly loves you more than you are from a complete stranger. I’m really passionate about women’s rights and to maintain my sanity I go and play at the theatre.
I feel that I have these two very different worlds that I walk in, one that I’m continually being confronted by the most horrific aspects of humanity and the way humans can be towards each other. A big part of my work here is teaching other health professionals how to respond to child protection and how to protect them from further abuse. I do that 9 to 5, but after 5 and on the weekends I get to work in Community theatre, working with people to create dreams, to create fun, to bring light and laughter. It’s the Rochdale theatre but I’m the President of the Lismore Theatre Company which is based at the Rochdale Theatre.
I’ve been Involved with the company for 20 years starting with The Twisted Wits which was a theatre games we did once a month at the Uni. It was hilarious. In 2013 after playing in lots of different roles I thought I might do some directing so we did The Vagina Monologues with the help of wonderful theatre people I’m still deeply involved with including Kylie Fuad and Elise Dallinger, we then did Ophelia thinks Harder, etc. I get to read theatre, go to plays and find stories that I think help to promote this alternative way of looking at relationships and abuse.
The first time we did The Vagina Monologues I had this 80 year old woman come up to me and say, ‘I’ve never looked at my vagina and I’m going home tonight to find it. (laughs)’. It’s such a wonderful testimony to the power of theatre and art to change the way we see the world and the way we see ourselves. Last year we did David Williamson’s Dead White Males and I had an elderly man say to me, ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever seen myself on stage.’ He was a WW2 Veteran and he was speaking about how he didn’t fit in the modern world and how he didn’t understand feminism because when it came to war it was still the men who were going to go and fight and die for women. Theatre allows us to see ourselves. Finding stories to help our community to see oordelves is really important.
I read something on FB the other day where someone was arguing should we be spending money on repairing our Regional Gallery? And the answer is Yes. Are you saying that we as community don’t deserve a gallery? We had the most amazing gallery. We had the most glorious artworks, Margaret Ollies, a Namatijira painting, The Hannah Cabinet, Digby Moran’s work. To be in a country town and to be able to go to a gallery and see world quality art is such a gift. Art is such great tool. Whatever you’re going through you channel it in some way.
When my darling husband Monty died, he passed away 7 years ago in a motor cycle accident, he had been a local Counsellor at Tafe for 5 years, He had established Indigirelate, the Aboriginal Counselling service which was a part of Interrelate and he was a wonderful, gorgeous person. When he died there was stuff to do at the theatre and I couldn’t give up. It’s really tempting when someone you love dies and we’d been together for 28 years, we had 2 delightful children who had lost their Dad just when they needed him the most as teens and I just couldn’t imagine a life without him. He was an Aboriginal man from Wiradjuri country down near Narrandera way.
We had made this magnificent life here and after he had passed away, Jenny Dowell and I were scheduled to do a show, Hedda Gabler. It had been in the works a long time and I decide to go ahead with it. It was a huge piece, I was only off the stage for a few minutes and the rest of the time I was on the stage and at the end of the show I would kill myself. That is the story of Hedda Gabler, she shoots herself in the head. It was an incredibly cathartic experience because here I was in the middle of this grief wanting to die, and I would have to act it out on stage every night for 3 months of rehearsal and 3 weeks of performing. The gift in that was I didn’t want to die. I want to live and have a good life and be there for my children and the world. I credit my theatre family as holding me through that very difficult time, very good, caring people. My boys were involved too with lighting, etc. Community theatre for me will always have heart and care and the passion of all involved. I really encourage people to take pain and channel it into art, whether that’s painting or writing or music or drawing, anything to help you resolve it.
That’s me! I walk these two worlds. I love supporting women and children to escape domestic violence and I love the theatre. The vast majority of men are perfectly wonderful men who love and care for the women they are involved with. There is 10% of men who engage in the 100% of violence against women. There are so many good men out there and we lose that because we keep hearing about that 10% that are engaged in the abuse. They target vulnerable people. The more vulnerable you are brings out two types of responses, for some people it brings out the desire to protect and for others it brings out the desire to exploit. 90% of people respond to vulnerability with the desire to protect and 10% will say here’s an opportunity and I’ll take advantage of that. I work really had to hold those stats in my head all the time.
We don’t work here with offenders, only victims and a lot of my work when I first started here was with men who had been sexually abused as children. That became a speciality area of mine. I had worked in the Army before I worked here as a Social Worker for 5 years. I worked as a Corporal in the Army Reserves as a Medic. I loved it and that paid for my University Career, then I worked for the Defence Force in Wagga Wagga. That’s where I met Monty and we married in Wagga. I guess I had this affinity with men so lots of that work was with male survivors. It’s so hard for men to talk about the fact that they experienced abuse. One in seven men will experience abuse by the time they are 18. The taboo and the messages are if you are sexually exploited that you’re less than a man somehow, or you’re gonna be Gay or you’re going to go on to harm other people. All myths, all not true.
The theatre has been an absolute lifesaver. I have met such good men through the theatre, good, kind, respectful men. I got all these men together to do Eve Ensler’s Men’s Prayer (see link below) Lismore Community including my Monty read a line from the prayer. It’s so beautiful. I’m so grateful to be able to tell you this story.