Tell us a fun fact about yourself.
I was born and lived in Perth WA for the first 37 years of my life – I have the wrinkles and spots to prove it!
What are you most passionate about?
Working with the community and volunteering – especially to give children and their families the best support we can. They need it now, more than ever.
What do you love about Emerald?
The beauty from every view and the strong sense of community, plus the friendly Emeraldians!
What would your last meal be?
Oh, a roast lamb dinner and bread and butter pudding – how old-fashioned is that!
What was your most memorable moment?
There are four of them – the births of our four wonderful babies – now four wonderful adults.
What was your favourite subject at school?
Had to be English – reading and writing, speaking and listening.
What event, past or present, would you like to witness?
How wonderful to live through the end of the Second World War – to see my Dad travel back across the Nullarbor in the train, from the Airforce and the Torres Strait Islands. To see people dancing in the streets and families not having to shelter in backyard bunkers for drills. The fear must have been enormous. And to see life get back to “normal”.
Which six dinner guests, dead or alive, would you invite to dinner?
Eleanor Rooseveldt, Spike Milligan, Germaine Greer, Stephen Fry, Catherine the Great, and David Niven. The conversation would be interesting!
What are you currently listening to/watching or reading?
Reading Maggie Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait – a favourite author. Watching PBS News Hour – we went to the USA in 2016, Trump era, and have been hooked on watching fascinating Americans ever since. Listening to ABC Country (when I am alone – I am hooked on Line Dancing in the kitchen!).
How would you describe my fashion sense?
Colourful and eclectic. I am not a beige person.
Have you had a pet that has made an impact on you?
Bluey, the Blue Heeler, arrived shortly after I was born. She died when I was 12 and I worried I might be going too.
If you had to compete on MasterChef, what dish would you cook?
I have cooked every variety of scone known to man for over 46 years. Sweet, savoury, Vegemite rolls, apple and cinnamon, gluten free – you name it, I’ve done it! Day 2 might be a problem…
What is your dream holiday destination?
Anywhere with a tree, a water view, mountains, a sun lounge and a book. Far North Queensland, Gippsland, South West WA, a boat on the Rhine…
What were you like as a kid?
Noisy, loud and usually upside down in a handstand, or on my bike, or deep in a book…
What was your favourite colour and why?
Blue, because my sister and I were always dressed in handmade puffy blue dresses in the 1950s and my Dad sang “Two little girls in blue …” to us. If my Mum was not happy with me, I wore apple green – which I hated!
What was your first job?
I worked, as a 14-year-old, in the Christmas School Holidays, in Boan’s Department Store in central Perth, selling Mousetraps and kitchen implements. Such a step up into the world of adults for a skinny, red headed kid – catching the bus into town, wearing a dress and stockings, eating my lunch sandwich in the huge, old staff cafeteria. I worked with another similar young man – we had a lot of fun setting off those mousetraps!
What is the one question you have never been able to get the answer to?
Did Granddad Greenslade have the Spanish Flu in 1919?
