16 July 2023, The Avenue, East Malvern, Melbourne, Australia
So you’ve heard about Jo Connolly’s political life and you’ve heard about her travel adventures. It’s my task today to tell you a bit about the other bit of her life, the more domestic part.
But if you thought that was just another way of saying more mundane, you’d be very wrong. Because nothing mum did or anything with which she engaged was ever mundane.
Mum had had to grow up quickly looking after four kids by the time she was 28. By the time I, the youngest, was a little kid, she had the whole motherhood thing down pat. She could do it in her sleep, effortlessly and successfully.
And so the routine that goes with helping little ones grow needed a bit of spicing up to keep both of us interested. And she loved that. She was incredibly resourceful, a legacy of growing up herself in a difficult time when people had to make do with very little.
All manner of household objects could be fashioned into toys by her capable hands. And her very capable mind could come up with all sorts of little games which served not only to educate but to entertain.
I remember vividly the times spent with her at home when I was three or four years old learning to read, to write, and to think. So good a teacher was she that by the time I started kindergarten I already felt ready to take on HSC.
And I reckon even then I could rattle off who’d won the VFL premiership in which year from 1897 onwards. It was mum, and dad of course, who fostered that love of learning for which all four of us Connolly kids remained ever grateful.
And look, let’s be honest, she wasn’t above a little sly indoctrination to go with that education, either.
Like probably became a little clear one day at home here in the early ‘70s, when mum asked a 10 or 11-year-old Linda if she could pop down to the milk bar and pick her up some chocolate, her parting words as her young daughter walked out of the house: “But not Cadbury”.
Linda duly passed this information on to the milk bar owner, who understandably then asked: “Why not Cadbury?” Even at that age, Linda knew instinctively there must be sound political reasoning, so responded with what (to us at least) would have seemed obvious. “Because they exploit the peanut pickers of third world countries”.
Upon arrival at home, almost as an afterthought, Linda checked again that she had the right cause. “So why couldn’t I get Cadbury?” she asked. “It’s too sweet,” said mum without batting an eyelid, clearly thinking wrong reason, right motive.
Mum was so smitten by South America and its culture that when she returned from that first six-month trip she had literally suitcases full of clothes from the region she’d bought for us and wanted us to wear, alpaca jumpers, ponchos, headbands.
I remember being taken along on a visit to some family friends so completely wrapped up in Latin American dress I felt like I was about five seconds away from being called Rafael instead of Rohan and being made to learn the pan flute every day after school. Not for the first or last time, I pushed back. But even then I recognized it was all out of Mum’s enthusiasm for different things, different cultures and different people.
That benefitted all of us, particularly me. Mum’s connection with the local Chilean community led to me playing soccer for South Yarra for several years with a team of Chilean kids. They were all very gifted at the game. I was far less-skilled but the bigger body they needed in defence.
It worked out well. Mum got to mingle with the Chilenos while I played, we had plenty of success, and I also got my first girlfriend, a sister of one our team members. I also nearly got the living suitcase belted out of me one day when were playing a Croatian team and things got willing between groups of spectators.
After we’d won the game and insults were exchanged, my impetuous 15yo sensibilities took over and I rolled down mum’s car window as we drove off to scream: “You’re a pack of fascist pricks”.
I thought mum would be proud of me, but it wasn’t really the case as we were chased up Springvale Rd by two carloads of rather pissed off Croatians who ended up blocking us in in the middle of a busy intersection.
It was about the one time I saw Mum’s sense of self-preservation overtake her maternal instincts as a group of angry young men started hammering on Mum’s car. “It wasn’t me, it was him,” she pleaded. Thanks mum.
Then there was the time in 1989 we were all very anxious when mum had taken a tour group to China and been in Tiananmen Square literally hours before the infamous events which unfolded there. Dad was doing long days at the Melbourne Film Festival in his role as film critic for The Herald, and so had set up an answering machine (this was pre mobile phones of course) as we crossed fingers we’d hear from Mum soon.
Dad, noted for his fierce intellect, but never for his brevity, had recorded a perhaps overly-detailed message for playback in which among other things, he talked about that year’s Ashes series in England, in which we were doing particularly well.
It’s fair to say Mum was a little short on time, money and patience when she was able to finally make contact days later. So when concerned patrons at the Film Festival asked Dad whether Mum was OK, he was able to respond: “Yes, she rang from the deepest recesses of the Mongolian desert to tell me that she was OK, and that I’m a fuckwit.”
Those here who follow football will know that unlike Dad, who had renounced his West Australian football heritage and become an enthusiastic Essendon supporter, something he instilled in all of us, mum resolutely refused to fall in line, waiting instead until the West Coast Eagles entered the competition in 1987 to get on board the football bandwagon.
Like all WA footy fans, mum did a beautiful line in conspiracy theory about the eastern states. Any reversals for West Coast were always obviously a result of biased umpiring or all that travel they had to do.
Mum’s loyalty to her home state was rewarded though, the Eagles having won four AFL flags over the journey. Until this year, anyway when the bottom of the ladder side started to stink it up like few teams previously.
In fact, and I hope this doesn’t sound too macabre, but I think Mum knew what was coming when she checked out, because in the first two games after she died, West Coast lost to Adelaide by 122 points, then Sydney by an incredible 171 points, the fourth highest margin in footy history.
Mum, if you’re listening to this, no, I don’t think with some fairer umpiring they might have cut that losing margin to under three figures, but nice try.
The other perversely serendipitous thing about the timing of Mum’s passing is that it happened so close to the sad loss of her lifelong best friend Liz Milne, whose sons Peter and David are here today, and thanks so much for coming guys.
They’d met when mum took me to kindergarten in 1969 and they simply loved each other’s company, as much at the end as when they’d first met and incredibly, in seven different decades. When Linda rang to tell me mum had had a stroke, only weeks after Liz had one and passed away, the first thing I thought was: “She’s gone out in sympathy”. A very loyal and a very mum thing to do.
I grumbled about how often mum was away when I was a kid, but boy did she step up to the plate when Lucia and I had our own kids, Andrea and David.
My brother Steve died just six months before our daughter Andrea was born 11 weeks prematurely in late 1995, another major trauma to deal with. But Mum’s resilience won the day and her care and support for our baby was something to behold.
It was repeated six or so years later when David was born even more prematurely. I know both of them remember very fondly the very special relationship they shared with their grandma, and the time they spent in this house in her care when either parent was working or otherwise engaged.
I know I lost count of the number of times I’d pick Andrea and David up to be regaled by some fascinating new fact they’d learned from their grandma, be it about history, geography, the arts, music, you name it.
Lucia and I are very proud of our wonderful kids and we know that mum has played a part too in making them the fine young adults they are today.
She could do it all, really. Play the political firebrand, the intrepid traveller, and yes, be a mum and a grandma, all with equal aplomb. Oh yeah, just thought of something, she was pretty damn good at Scrabble, too.
Mum, on behalf of us all, thank you so much. You touched the lives of everyone here in different ways, and we’re all grateful for it. I’m sorry though, no matter how much I love you, you’re never going to see me caught wearing a bloody poncho!
