My Life in Pictures

This was the title for a talk I recently gave to a Probus Club meeting. I joined the club nine months ago and all new members are asked to give a 10-minute talk about their lives to introduce themselves so members get to know you a bit. And this month it was my turn. I decided to do something a bit different to the talks I'd listened to; they had all seemed a bit serious and not that lively, with a heavy emphasis on their schooling, the jobs they had and their grandchildren. So I decided to illustrate my talk, thinking it would take the pressure off me, and at the same time be a bit light-hearted. I searched through all my photos and came up with about 30 that seemed to me to sum up different parts of my life.  Here are some of these photos. I've also added a few more I couldn't include in the talk because of time constraints. I decided to post the talk as a blog so I have a permanent record of it. 

The first (no baby photos thank goodness) was an official school photograph when I was five. It was in the days when few families had a camera so these photos were rather precious.  It still amazes me that it is still in perfect condition and so clear. Afterwards, people came to tell me that they had a similar photo - and they all loved the bow! 

I mentioned my sister and how we are still close and I love this photo of us. In Perth, a street photographer would take photos and give you a business card if you wanted to buy it from his studio. This one was taken outside the Commonwealth Bank near Forrest Place. I love it.

When I was 12, I won a TV in an Australia-wide competition to say 'why you liked Eta Peanuts 'in 25 words or less'. As I said in my talk, I was a bit miffed because the first prize was a swimming pool and that is what I would really have liked. However, it was a big deal as television had only just arrived in Perth and we didn't know anyone who had one. This was a publicity photo.  Don't you love the carpet. And the curtains.  Dad made the red vinyl bar studded with cream buttons.  

I fell in love with acting and appeared in many plays all my teenage years. My first role was Amy in Little Women. 

A more prestigious role was one I auditioned for when I was 14 - part of the chorus of four women in Murder in the Cathedral, a Festival of Perth production. The cast was full of well-known Perth actors and some had been brought over from England - though I was unaware of any of this. I was interviewed for the newspaper where it said ' A fourteen year old schoolgirl has won a plum role in this year's Festival of Perth'. I remember  thinking how much I enjoyed it - learning the lines, the rehearsals, being with real professional actors.  I still remember how I had to stand up at various times and deliver my lines as part of the 4-women chorus (Destiny, Woman, Mother, The Girl) . 

However, the most fun I had was as Titania in A Midsummer's Night Dream.  Why? Because I was 15 and the play was for a Scotch College production, so most of the cast were 15 to 17-year-old boys!!! 

But I also loved football and barracked for the Perth Demons. I made this devil for a Grand Final day and displayed it in our front yard. I'm 16 and went to the footy with my boyfriend. 

I included this photo in my talk because, for me, it encapsulates a Perth summer in which we watched the boys surf, sunbaked (with the emphasis on 'baked' as we smothered ourselves in Coconut Reef suntan lotion and olive oil), fished, and went prawning in the Swan River in the evening. I'm with my friend Jan at Safety Bay, south of Perth.

I trained as a teacher. This is the only photo I have of me teaching at Queens Park Primary School. We were on our way to the school hall to watch a touring group of actors who were putting on a play. A neighbour of mine was one of the actors and took this photo. He he. Aren't my students lovely - so well-behaved and I'm not taking any notice of them!!!

I announced that this next photo was my vanity photo, showing that I did indeed have a flat stomach and a waist at one time!!!! I then said that I often look at old photos and think 'Is that really me?' and wondered if those in the audience did the same, to which there were murmurs of agreement.

Of course, I was proud to announce I had two daughters. I loved dressmaking and made most of their clothes including these little tutus. Sharon is about 5 and Kate is 3. And I'm still in my twenties!

A few years later (and now a single mother) I was posted to Cannington High School as a Reading Resource teacher, helping those students who found reading difficult, to cope with high school texts. It was a fun place. Here I am when we had to dress 'Australian': Aren't these creative Year 12 girls adorable as lamingtons.

My Year 9 girls asked me to be Olivia Newton-John (of course) in their Greased Lightening number, along with a Phys Ed teacher.  Again, this is one of those photos that I look at and say 'Is that me?' I can hardly reach down to do my shoelaces up now!  

I was now married to Steve and we decided to move to Tasmania. This was our lovely cottage in Bellerive, opposite Hobart on the Derwent's eastern shore. Here I developed an interest in gardening, as well as history and writing about local history. 

I did a lot of climbing ...

                                                ... hiking ... 

... and I saw lots of snow and became a cover girl!

I got a job as a Research and Evaluation officer in the head office of the Education Department, evaluating new school programs the government had introduced. One job I enjoyed was evaluating the Indonesian language program that schools in the north-west had introduced. The job was not only interesting and challenging but I got to travel all over Tasmania which was amazing.

When my boss was naturalised she held an Australiana party. No - I was not going to go as a lamington. 'What would you have gone as?' I asked.  All I had to do for Steve was put some waves on his shirt as a friend of Kate's designed and made the Sydney Harbour bridge. My vegemite jar was made up of bits and pieces from a reject shop that specialised in cardboard boxes, large pieces of rubber, pieces of cotton and other material and all sorts of fascinating 'junk'. 

And then, after almost 10 years in Tasmania, we flew over Bass Strait and landed in Melbourne where we bought an apartment in a former MacRobertson chocolate factory. Ours was the middle two windows on the top (third) storey.

I got a job almost immediately with a publishing company writing text books for certificate courses for TAFE and other private providers. I loved the work and stayed with them for 18 years! 

My interest in history led me to researching the life of Macpherson Robertson and his chocolate empire, resulting, five years later, in my book. I'm very proud of this, as it's not easy to get a book published. 

 

After 12 years, the apartment block was getting noisier and the area getting younger (skateboarders rattling down the street at 3:00am outside our window), so we bought 5 acres of land in Bolwarra, just outside Portland, not that far from the South Australian border. In fact, it was closer to visit Mount Gambier in SA than Warrnambool in Victoria.  Happily, I was able to continue my job working from home. I was also able to indulge my love of gardening.

We had a cat, chooks, two alpacas (Machu and Picchu) and agisted two lovely horses, while the acreage included a large orchard and a lavender grove of 400 lavender bushes. I made a lot of lavender bags over the years. 

And we were on a koala belt and had koalas regularly visiting our gum trees. I loved seeing the mothers with their babies on their backs. One even came onto our deck.

We had a wonderful eight years there, but then decided to retire and came here to Encounter Bay, South Australia, a state we had not lived in before. 

I'm finishing off with a few travel photos as, for the past 40 years, Steve and I have travelled to many places in the world. Travelling was so much easier in the early days with little restrictions, sometimes the aircraft would only be 3/4 full and we never booked anywhere - just turned up to see what was on offer.  We backpacked, but did not travel light! Here we are in Flam, Norway.

You may have travelled to these places too. The first is Bruges in Belgium. 

We enjoyed our time in Myanmar in 2016 when Augn San Suu Kyi was briefly in power before a military coup took over the country. I fear that travelling there today would not be the same.

Similarly, we loved our holiday in Syria in 2004, especially the ancient ruins, the vast desert landscapes, the food and the friendliness of the people. But the ruins you see behind me in Palmyra were all completely destroyed when bombed by ISIS in 2015. We also visited a Bedouin camp. I loved the experience. The children kept stroking my blonde hair.   

Perast in Montenegro was, I'm sure you'll agree, a picture postcard town.

In 2010 we visited Romania, a land of castles, mountains, rushing rivers, towns each with its distinct architectural style, and yummy barbecued food.  It sometimes felt like a step back in time with more horse and carts than cars on the road. In the Transylvanian countryside we came upon farmers building haystacks. This lady agreed to a photo following lots of hand gestures, body language and much merriment.

 

Closer to home, the next photo is of the Solomon Islands.  We loved whizzing between the many islands in an open motor boat.

This next photo is included because our travels have not all been plain sailing. We were in the Huang Shan Mountains in central China (a short flight from Shanghai). I was walking down some steep concrete steps when I turned around to look at something and my backpack kind of took me over and I fell and ended up in a ditch beside the steps. Ouch. I was carried to the nearby hotel where I stayed for a day before we could leave - my ankle bandaged up tightly. The next day I was carried down the mountain by these two lovely men  in a kind of a chair carried on their shoulders. How embarrassing. People actually waved at me as if I was the Queen of Sheba. Here, Kate is walking beside me trying to keep my spirits up.

We visited a hospital at a nearby town where they xrayed me and diagnosed a broken ankle (with a spiral fracture). Back home, I was on crutches for the next few months.

And this last travel photo, I said, was one of the best beaches we have ever seen.  I asked if anyone knew it. It is Waitpinga Beach, a few kms from our house in Encounter Bay. No-one recognised it. I think they were expecting me to say Hawaii or South Africa. 

I ended my talk by explaining that I now was a volunteer radio presenter on the local community radio station - FleurieuFM - having a two-hour timeslot on a Sunday afternoon playing music from the 1950s through the 1980s. I do love it, with Steve helping me run the board.

And I ended my talk by saying that it was last June that friends Helen and Sandy sponsored me as a Probus member. 

So a different Profile talk than most people give, but at least I think I kept everyone's attention.

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