Vale Sandy Kirby

The first time I met Sandy Kirby was over coffee at Café 101 opposite the Victorian Trades Hall building in Lygon Street, Carlton.

A couple of weeks before we were due to start working on a project together, Sandy had called me to arrange this meeting. It all felt very organised, which was a fairly alien concept to me - mostly my life was shambolic, often chaotic. But Sandy was a very organised woman, and she also understood and appreciated the importance of relationships. She was determined to forge one with me.

At that café I was pleased to encounter a warm humorous woman who was thoroughly intelligent and disarmingly frank. Sandy was softly spoken, and in the time that I knew her I never heard her raise her voice, even in moments of anguish or frustration, preserving her vocal volume for moments of laughter. And there were many of those moments during our time working together.

We worked together on a project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the achievement of the Eight Hour Day in Victoria, sharing office space first in the Melbourne Museum then later moving into the grand Trades Hall building in Lygon Street Carlton.



On day one of the project Sandy’s top priority was joining the CPSU. She’d always been a union member, but never a member of that union. The CPSU were located in Trades Hall at that time, so she raced up and grabbed a couple of forms for us both and got our membership sorted. Once that important formality was out of the way we started work in earnest.

Sandy was the project curator and she created exhibitions and found iconic (and unexpected) images with which to brand the project. She took delight in aesthetics and I remember the way she sighed delightedly upon seeing our re-worked logo “Look at those eights. Such exquisite curves.”

She was right, they were exquisite. And kudos to Melbourne Museum designer Luisa Laino for her meticulous work on the logo.



It was hard going sometimes, convincing trade union officials to support and embrace the arts & cultural programme of events the Eight Hour Day committee had developed, but we persisted. For Sandy, this was not new territory. She had encountered the same hesitance from some unionists in the 1980s while working on the Art and Working Life programme.

This programme encouraged and assisted cultural activities in the Australian trade union movement, including a project that enlisted artists to work with unions on the creation of banners. The union I currently work for, the Finance Sector Union has one of these banners; created by Megan Evans-Griggs for the then Australian Bank Employees’ Union in 1988.

The Victorian union movement in conjunction with the government of the day celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Eight Hour Day with 22 events staged over most of 2006, and Sandy and I were involved in most of these to varying degrees. Sandy was heavily involved in the exhibition of trade union banners at Melbourne Museum and an exhibition that travelled around the state called It’s About Time!

The research, writing, and location and selection of images for these projects fell to Sandy, and it was Sandy who suggested we track down and use images created by Melbourne photographer Ponch Hawkes for the overall branding of the project. It was an inspired suggestion, and although it wasn’t a popular suggestion in some quarters of the union movement I still believe it was the right one.



There was so much about this project that was fun that it’s quite difficult to nominate a favourite event or moment, but I do have fond memories of Sandy and I travelling around the state scouting exhibition locations for It’s About Time! In particular I recall an overnight stop in Albury where much wine was consumed, much laughter occurred and much shit was spoken. How either of us managed to drive a vehicle the next morning is unfathomable. We took turns, but both felt equally seedy. It was a pretty quiet drive to Shepparton, that’s for sure.

During the latter part of the project, Sandy became ill with cancer, and began treatment.

She continued to work throughout her treatment, even though it was clear that chemotherapy and radiotherapy were taking their toll and sapping her energy. The treatment worked though, and Sandy entered a period of remission and regained her energy and zest for life.

By then the Eight Hour Day project was over, and Sandy and I went our separate ways in search of our next challenges and adventures.

The last time I saw Sandy she was being cared for at the Caritas Christi hospice. A new cancer, this time a brain tumour, had invaded her body. Her left ear could no longer hear and left eye could no longer see, but when I visited she was listening to Radio National with her good ear and working on The Age crossword using her good eye. Her bed was draped in colourful scarves; artworks and images covered walls and shelves. Sandy’s room overlooked a garden courtyard and she was at pains to point out that it wasn’t a bad place to die, especially as the staff were keeping the religious crap to a minimum.

Sandy trained her good eye on me and it pierced through my façade as it always had done in the past. And just like she had done in the past, Sandy asked me the questions I didn’t want to be asked, on all the things I didn’t really want to face. Are you still in the same job? Are you still painting? How’s your love life?

The period I worked with Sandy was one of the most tumultuous of my life – marriage breakdown and divorce, regular separation from my children, a new relationship, lost friendships, new friendships, developing as an artist. I consider it my very good fortune to have spent this time in the company of such a wise, funny, good natured, challenging and caring woman as Sandy Kirby.

Sandy was a life partner to David, a mother to Alexander, a feminist, a writer, an historian, an artist, a teacher, a researcher, a builder, a communicator, a unionist, and a helluva woman. She was my colleague and my friend, and I feel blessed to have known her.

She taught me a lot and introduced me to ideas and artists that I may not have encountered otherwise, and she put up with me when I was being bitchy or tiresome. She encouraged me, in fact she never doubted me. I liked the way she questioned my reasoning when it needed questioning, and the way she gently steered me in a different direction rather than telling me I was wrong. And she infused me with a passion for Sudoku that I am yet to shake.

Sandy impressed upon me that cultural pursuits and art were integral to organised labour’s aim of communicating and engaging with the wider community, and I still passionately believe this to be the case.

It would be a fitting tribute to the life and work of Sandy Kirby if the Australian union movement made more of an effort to celebrate and promote union culture and to never forget the significance of union history or that history’s relationship with current struggles.

Vale Sandy. Rest in peace.

Cooking: Swedish Meatballs

I hadn't made this dish before but it was so easy and tasty that I'm sure I'll be making it again and again.

Throw a handful of chopped fresh herbs, like flat-leaf parsley, dill or chives (or all three!) into a bowl with 300g of fresh pork mince and 300g of fresh beef mince. Add 75g of breadcrumbs, 100 ml of milk, one egg and a teaspoon of allspice. Mix together with your hands. To make “elegant meatballs” I rolled half the mixture into a sausage shape and then sliced it up before rolling the meatballs (keeping hands wet as much as possible).

Lay the meatballs on an oiled tray, cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the meatballs, rolling them around the pan until browned and transfer cooked meatballs to a plate.

Drain the oil from the pan and add the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of plain flour, 60 ml of double cream (I used regular cream and increased the amount I added), and 300ml of beef stock. The recipe I was following also called for the addition of a heaped tablespoon of berry jam, but I dispensed with that.

Bring to the boil, then simmer until the sauce thickens enough to stick to the meatballs. Return meatballs to the pan and stir until they are well coated.

I served the meatballs with some baked potatoes and a crunchy salad with lettuce, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, grated carrot and spring onions.

Yum yum!

I found this recipe in Jamie Oliver's book Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France.

Dear books, I love youse

I love books. I love the feel of them in my hand and the weight of them in my bag. I love the sound of pages turning and that f-f-f-f-f-f-f-tt sound the pages make when you fan them. I've heard people say they love the smell of books. I love the smell of a brand new book as it wafts up when you turn the cover of your new book but I'm not fond of the dusty, musty smell of books acquired after sitting unread for a time.
I love having them around me and letting my gaze linger on favourite titles while I remember the tales and characters within the covers. They are the first things I packed each time I moved house and I couldn't go a night in a new place without cracking open at least one box of books.

And it hasn't been a one sided relationship. They've kept me company in lonely times and when I've been waiting for transport/doctors/dates/friends, they've cosseted and cocooned me when I've needed comforting or distraction, and they lull me to sleep every night.

But like all relationships there are cons. Collecting dust and taking up space being chief among them.

Notwithstanding these small irritations I still have about 80% of the books that I have either bought or had given to me over the last forty years. And while you might imagine a person wouldn't accumulate a lot of books over that time, let me assure you, you can. Especially when you take into account my inability to walk past a second-hand book store/sale/market without at least having a look, and that I receive at least one book at Christmas and birthdays.

It all adds up, and with so many good books on hand its sometimes hard to let them go. You have to apply a ruthless attitude to book-culling but every time I try to do a serious cull I hang on to all the ones I enjoyed reading and hope to read again some day, and all the ones I bought thinking I would read but haven't yet, in case I do decide to read them some day. Most of the books on my shelves I have read at least once, but my proximity to the quarterly Darebin Library book sale has seen the numbers of "I'd like to read it someday" books swell.

Over the years I've given away heaps of books to charities and our local school to help them with fundraising, but still my bookshelves are overflowing and there are piles of books beside the bed, on the coffee table and the kitchen bench. I found an unopened box of books in a cupboard yesterday, and a stack of books out in the shed. Not just my books either. My two children each boast a fair collection of books too.

In a further step along the road to putting my own stamp on the space I'm inhabiting I am rearranging the lounge room for the first time in ten years, and faced with the task of moving bookshelves (and by extension their contents) it is clear to me that we are running out of space and need to cull again.

So over the weekend and this evening I have been filling boxes. Out go the Little Golden Books my children have outgrown. Out go the children's encyclopaedia sets from the 70s and 80s. Out go most of the picture books – there were some I couldn't bear to part with though, like When The Big Dog Barks (by Munzee Curtis, illustrations by Susan Avishai) and Jane Hissey's gorgeous Little Bear and Old Bear books (lovely illustrations).

I kept classics like A Sausage Went For A Walk, Winnie The Pooh, Robert Ingpen illustrated versions of Peter Pan & Wendy and The Secret Garden, and all of our Dr Seuss books. I kept the books that made us laugh like Kaz Cooke's The Terrible Underpants and it's equally brilliant follow-up Wanda-Linda Goes Beserk. Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen stayed, along with Werner Holzwarth/Wolf Erlbruch's The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business. The entertainingly subversive Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type and Vote For Duck also remain on the shelf. And quite a few more. Sigh.

Still, I have managed to fill four large boxes. As I stuff the culled books into boxes I try not to think about how many times I read them aloud to my children before they could read, and the times we read them aloud together since. I try not to remember the funny voices we put on, or the pictures we marvelled at, or the way we cuddled up on the couch or in bed to share and enjoy these stories. Because if I do remember for too long I'll be tempted to hang on to them in the vain hope that by keeping them I will relive those times. But the memories are inside me not in the books, so I continue to cull and pack and shove out the door.

Re-homing these books is a celebration of my children's maturity and hopefully they will provide pleasure to other, younger children. Besides, with more than 40,000 new book titles published each year we need room to store all of the books to come. We need room for the new stories, the new authors and illustrators that will delight, engross and challenge us in years to come.

We'll read some of those new stories on e-readers, and maybe some old ones too. But I think there'll always be room in my house for a book or two.

What are your favourite books?

Following the recent devastating floods in Queensland, Romance Writers of Australia has launched a book appeal for flooded communities. Find out more and donate books if you can.

The one where this blog becomes a bit like those blogs about cooking and eating.

I've never been a fan of making New Year's resolutions. There didn't seem to be much point making a vow that no one seemed to expect you to keep. Whenever asked what mine were I'd scrabble around in my brain for a response that would satisfy, rather than searching for something meaningful and achievable. For many years I didn't even bother, “I don't make resolutions,” became the stock response.

I spent this New Year's Eve with new friends, and not having celebrated the New Year with them before I was surprised by the seriousness with which the making of resolutions was undertaken. Surprised and delighted as it turns out, as the ensuing discussion delved into many areas of our respective lives and gave us all a bit to think about and made us laugh.

I held steadfast on the night and didn't make any resolutions then, but I decided to spend some time thinking about what resolutions I could make if I did want to make some. One friend suggested that five resolutions was a good number, so you could cover off maybe one largish goal, a couple of medium sized ones, and two smallish goals. And if you don't keep them all, the odds are that you'll keep at least one or two, which would be an achievement in itself.

Eleven days hence I've managed to come up with three, and they are neither exciting nor particularly challenging. That's the way I'm feeling right now anyway, on the tail of a three week break from the work/school/life grind. But on the eve of hurling myself back into the maelstrom of fulltime work, I wonder how long it will be before these three resolutions are harder to stick to.

I've spent the last three weeks simply pottering around at home gardening, cooking, eating, sorting, reading and I reckon I've spent about a third of that time washing dishes . My resolutions for 2011 reflect this period of pottering.

1.Leave the car at home once a week and walk to and from the station.
Our family were without a car for three months in 2010 and while at times it was a pain in the arse we were all a bit fitter and leaner due to all the walking – there's a fair bit of festive season excess to walk off. The extra time spent walking together was great for our relationships, we had some top chats. A regular day of the week will be set once we know the children's school and extra-curricular activities schedules for 2011.

2.Cook something I've never cooked before at least once a fortnight.
There's a stack of cookbooks in my kitchen, I scour the recipes on the cooking pages of The Age, and I'm a huge fan of the dinner spinner on the AllRecipes iPhone app. Yet I don't cook new dishes all that often. I was gifted a new cookbook for Christmas, Jamie Oliver's Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France and this seems to have inspired a rush of exploration of new ingredients and recipes. It's been fun so far, as well as tasty.

Recipes successfully attempted so far:

Chorizo and Tomato Salad
Croquetas
Patatas Bravas
Ratatouille-style Briouats
Choc Chip Banana Muffins
Jansson's Temptation

3.Establish a vegie garden
In some areas of my life I'm action-orientated, a doer. In other areas, such as say home improvements, I'm more of a plodder. Things can bother me for years before I act on them; and so it was with the Hills Hoist swing set. I remember the night it was assembled and installed. Like so many other parents that night we spent our Christmas Eve sweating and swearing in the dark while taking fortifying sips of Santa's whiskey. Many hours and skinned knuckles later we looked proudly on the safe and sturdy swing set, and in the morning two happy little faces shone when they spotted the contraption.

The kids grew out of the swing set about five years ago, and it has sat there taking up space in our suburban sanctuary ever since. Occasionally smaller children would visit us and take pleasure in swinging on the yellow plastic seats, but even those children have now grown too big for it. I kept telling myself I'd dismantle it when I had time, how hard could it be? Lurking in the back of my thoughts though was that sweaty Christmas Eve installation, and I imagined the task would be more daunting than I realised.

One morning last week I got up, walked out on to the back deck to survey my tiny kingdom (queendom?) and decided that was the day the swing set would go. I ventured forth confidently with my shifting spanner to undertake the massive task. I put on sunscreen, took a bottle of water out with me, and fretted about not wearing a hat. After all, I could be out there a while.

I was shocked by the looseness of the nuts – how had this thing stayed upright for so long? The long uprights that were pegged deep in the earth slide out easily. Twenty minutes after I turned the first nut I was swing-set free.

Idiot.

I'm going to use that space to establish a vegie garden.

Cooking: Chorizo and Tomato Salad

The first recipe from my new Jamie Oliver cookbook that I tried. Three large tomatoes and a punnet of cherry tomatoes chopped up and thrown in a bowl with parsley and spring onions and a splash of red wine vinegar. Slice up and fry a chorizo sausage, when it's cripsy throw in some garlic and turn the heat down. When you don't want the garlic to cook any more (don't burn it!) add a splash of red wine vinegar. Mix the sausage with tomato mix for a yummy salad.

This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.

Cooking: Croquetas

Another Jamie Oliver recipe from Spain, this was a near-disaster. You make a standard white sauce with butter, flour and milk and add nutmeg, cheese and ham (prosciutto is recommended but I went with leg ham), then you chill the mixture. Once stiff you're supposed to mould the mixture into little sausage shapes and coat them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fry in hot oil for a few minutes. I'm not sure if my mixture hadn't been chilled sufficiently, or whether I'd mucked up the amount of flour needed (I really need to look for my kitchen scales!) but the mixture wasn't exactly stiff, more sticky than anything else. It was messy and took ages, and I ended up with some fairly munted shapes, switching to patties rather than sausage shapes (although I did manage to mould a couple of them into little snags). A very tasty dish but time consuming a labour intensive. Including chilling time, it took three hours from start to finish.

This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.

Cooking: Patatas Bravas

In the Special Tapas section of the Jamie Oliver cookbook I found this scrumptious dish. Parboil and then fry potatoes, adding garlic and rosemary for the last minute of frying. Once drained, sprinkle paprika, fennel seeds and salt over the potatoes and toss until coated. The potatoes are served with a sauce, either on the side or covering the potatoes. The bravas sauce has onion and garlic (softened), chilli, finely chopped carrot, thyme, tinned tomatoes and red wine vinegar. Once that's all in the pot you simmer for 15 minutes until the carrots are soft and the sauce is thick. Brilliant!