People’s stories

This is a cry from the heart.

Ken, aged 95, locked down

I was just about to walk out the door to have dinner with my sister and cousin. It’s that kind of moment isn’t it, a moment when social distancing and all it implies means that family are the best people to be with. They’ll forgive you if you suddenly sneeze … Read more

Jill Emberson’s legacy – Pink Meets Teal.

Jill Emberson's Pink Meets Teal legacy features in the Australian Womens Weekly, February issue

Jill Emberson’s crusade for better funding for Ovarian Cancer continues. See the article about Jill’s campaign and legacy: When Pink Meets Teal, by Genevieve Gannon, P 60, in the Australian Women’s Weekly issue, February. To support Pink Meets Teal, go to: https://pinkmeetsteal.com/ To sign a petition for equity in Ovarian … Read more

My Deer, Phoenix Park.

Phoenix Park, Ireland, pic courtesy National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, Ireland.

That’s a full stop – a red stop sign with angled corners and a white line around it.  Resting here, my knees have buckled, in front of that sign you planted in my path. I have walked this space so confidently, happy to share what I know, to muck in. … Read more

A Mexican Cross to remember Chris

A Mexican Cross to remember Chris by, made better for its imperfections, as he is buried today.

Today a Mexican Cross to remember Chris by, because later this morning, Sydney time, his family who are dear to my heart will bury him. They are a large Catholic family just like the one I grew up in and now he, one of the six siblings, is gone. If … Read more

Farewell to Pauline Helen Hensley

Pauline Helen Hensley

Pauline looked as though she was just doing the ordinary things: just getting on with it because, as she said, you’ve got no choice. But she was being absolutely extraordinary.

Farewelling Dot with music

Gavin worked in the music industry for a long time – so music has a special significance to him – and he knew it did for his mother-in-law Dorothy, who as a young woman had strong connections with the theatre. But unfortunately, the family didn’t get the chance to talk … Read more

Things that I might forget on the first flight after my mother’s death

by Katherine Delaney That the captain was a woman with the first name of Rowena. That the mother behind me exhorting up, up, up in a high voice to her young child sounded like she was trying to re-assure herself. That I comforted myself by knowing that the fact that … Read more

Flowers for Jean

When my friend Susan’s mother Jean was cremated at Leura Memorial Gardens in Autumn this year, her family used lots of flowers and foliage from her garden in the Blue Mountains of NSW to adorn her coffin. It was a way of expressing something about Jean, who’d always loved the … Read more

Tributes to Parents

John Faine, then of ABC Melbourne, interviewed Susan Wyndham, Margaret Rice and Chris Hall on 24 October, 2013. That interview is just as relevant today as it was back then. Today I planted cuttings from my father’s garden to remind me of him. I had taken them from his garden … Read more

Saying goodbye to a cousin

We said farewell to my lovely cousin Kim this week, a beautiful woman and another cousin who died too young. Cousins are the first friends we have as children, they are different yet familiar. With them we have our early experiences of comfortably moving into someone else’s life, then slipping quickly … Read more