July 7, 2025 • 54 mins
What does courage look like when life throws you into unimaginable grief?
How do you keep showing up when the future you built disappears overnight?
In this weeks episode of Baskets of Knowledge, we speak with Roslyn English OAM, community leader, musician, cancer survivor, and proud recipient of the Order of Australia Medal.
At the youthful age of 80, Roslyn is still learning, growing, and giving back.
But behind her accolades is a story of raw, heart-wrenching resilience.
- The sudden loss of her husband in 1989.
- Raising three young daughters alone.
- Living hour by hour in the depths of grief.
- Rebuilding her life from scratch, one courageous step at a time.
Roslyn shares how she created her metaphorical “Bucket of Courage”, a concept born from heartbreak that now inspires her keynote speaking.
This episode is not just about loss. It’s about:
- The power of community (shoutout to Gosford Musical Society)
- Why grief deserves conversation, not silence
- Reinventing yourself at any age
- And how everyday courage changes lives
Key Learnings from this Episode:
🔸 Grief is love with nowhere to go and we all experience it in different forms
🔸 Don’t underestimate small wins sometimes, surviving the next hour is the win
🔸 Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s choosing to show up anyway
🔸 Community and creativity can be powerful tools for healing
🔸 You are never too old to learn something new or start again
Whether you're navigating loss, supporting someone who is, or needing a reminder that courage lives in you too, this episode is for you.
Enjoy
Prajesh and Tane
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh herein Tana here.
Welcome to our podcast, Passes of knowledge chats with a
difference. In our podcast, we invite guests
from around the country and around the world to talk about
how they got to where they at the moment.
It's about a journey, it's aboutan experience, it's about their
life. Kiriko February, welcome to
(00:27):
another episode of Baskets of Knowledge.
Just me today, Tan. I can't join us.
He's away doing some other cool things as he normally is, which
is really awesome. And it's always, I love to see
what I've put into my basket of knowledge over the last few
weeks. And the one thing that I have
put into my baskets of knowledgeover the the last few weeks is
the power of reflection. So why the power of reflection
(00:49):
is because I've just realized that a lot of us do some really
cool things in our lives, but wedon't even take time to pause
and reflect and celebrate those those achievements.
A lot of the times we look at those big things like a new job,
a new career, a new car, those big milestones.
But over the last few weeks, I was challenged by one of my
coaches to think about the smallwins and the reflections and
(01:12):
celebrating those. And my challenge to all this is
out there is think about the small wins that you have had and
how you actually celebrated them.
Or do you wait for the big wins to celebrate?
And my challenge for you is to find that small one to
celebrate. It doesn't have to be
extravagant, just it could just be a dance.
It could be buying yourself a cupcake, whatever it is.
(01:33):
But that's my challenge for you.But hey, we're not here to
listen to me because if we do, Icould be talking forever.
As always. We scour the world and we scour
the country to find people that we think are interesting.
We know that everyone is interesting out there.
Everyone's got a story to tell and if I could, I'll make this
my full time job, but I'm not Joe Rogan yet, so we don't get
(01:54):
paid for this yet. But one day Joe Rogan will be
coming for you. And today I'm really excited and
really honored and really privileged to introduce our
guest. This is a person that is coming
to my sphere just recently. Over the last few months, I have
been training in the world of public speaking and professional
speaking. And through that I've met some
really interesting people. And the person that we're going
(02:15):
to introduce this this this today is someone that popped
into my sphere and has shield just some just a small bit of a
life and just buried the small bit of life.
I was like, wow, what an amazingperson, what an amazing human.
Not just what they've been through, but where they are
right now. And it's really, like I said
(02:36):
before, privilege to have them on our podcast today.
So without further ado, Kiora, and welcome to pastors of
Knowledge Roslyn. Kerryora Prajesh.
Yeah, thank you Roslyn. Roslyn, For those of us who know
nothing about you, who is Roslyntoday, on July the 4th, 2025?
Actually, it's an auspicious daybecause I'm the 4th of July 2015
(03:00):
was I retired from my full time profession, so 10 years today.
I thought 4th of July was a veryappropriate day on which to put
my pen down. Amazing.
You put your pen down and now you can use your voice to tell
us about that, which is so cool.Yes, Yep.
Yeah, So what? What is Roslyn up to on the 4th
(03:21):
of July 2025? Today I have been online with a
session from about. Gosh, then what they, it was
about selling from the stage, wasn't it?
(03:41):
And how to close after you've done a speaking gig.
So it's, it's part of the publicand professional speaking that
I'm learning about. It's been part of my journey to
transform, I guess from somebodywho was stuck for many, many
(04:01):
years into somebody who's now moving forward and and quite a
different person to be quite honest.
Yeah. And I and I love that and I love
that. And I and I would love to just
touch on the fact. Do you want to tell our
listeners how old you are? And I'm going to talk about why
that's important. I will be 80 in December this
year. Amazing, amazing.
(04:22):
And why is that why I want to touch on this because at 80
years old, Roslyn is still out there learning.
And for those of you that are listening, going, I'm too old to
learn. Roslyn is a clear example of
like, hey, it's not too, too late to learn ever.
So This is why it's really, really inspiring.
But Roslyn, this is where you are today.
And if we reverse back and talk about, you know, your early,
(04:43):
early life, one of the things that really stood out for me in
your story that you shared was your life changed quite
dramatically in an instant when you came home one day.
Should we go back and start start the story there I guess?
Yes, yes, this is back on the 8th of January 1989.
My date never to be forgotten. I came back from Sydney and I in
(05:11):
the middle of the night, around 12:30 at night, I found my
husband dead to be quiet and he'd been electrocuted.
It was an electrical accident and he'd been thrown off a
ladder and of course the electrocution of course gave him
an instant cardiac arrest. So and he'd been dead for about
(05:32):
7 or 8 hours. So it wasn't pretty, certainly
not something you want anybody to see, but there you have it.
It was we'd he he was working onon a house that we had built a
project home that we were going to use to leapfrog and build our
(05:54):
forever home, which is where I'mliving now.
I built the house after he passed away, but it's a much
smaller version than than we hadplanned.
But it was I had, we were in themiddle of a whole lot of
financial and legal restructure.My husband had just bought into
(06:14):
an accounting practice. He'd been working there with his
best mate. And so we had all those legal
issues to resolve. We were, we had the Park Place
that we'd sold was put on the market and we actually exchanged
the contracts the morning that he passed away.
So it was and because his death was an accident, we had to have
(06:41):
an autopsy and an inquest and ohGod, the first inquest fell over
and the technicality because somebody didn't have
representation and all that sortof stuff.
So it was pretty. It was a pretty terrible time.
You spoke just before Rajesh about small wins.
At that time my small win was one hour and I can remember
(07:04):
every day I'd get up and think if I can get through the next
hour, I'll survive. If I can get through the next
hour, I'll survive. And that's honestly how I did
survive. Just one hour at a time until I
felt I could just move further forward, a little bit further, a
week at a time and that sort of thing.
So I took it very easily. We had three young children who
(07:25):
were 1012 and 13 and I can honestly say without them I I
don't know what I would have done.
They gave me a reason to get up every day and they gave me
things to do so that I could getthrough the day, you know, which
was very interesting. I, it was a really, really tough
time for them and very hard to them.
(07:47):
The, the oldest girl was 14 and 13.
Actually, she hadn't, she was about to turn 14.
And the other one was starting high school.
How hard was that for her, you know, leaving her, these being
her other, you know, primary school friends, making new
friends, new high school, No, father pretty.
(08:08):
It was really hard for her. And the youngest one was 10.
She didn't quite understand because I can remember one night
was sitting at dinner and she said to me, what did you do with
dad? I said, what do you mean?
She said, well, where is he? What happened to him?
Where did you put him? And I thought, well, I'm not at
the age of 10, I'm not about to try and explain cremation.
(08:28):
So I just sort of said, well, hehad an accident as you know, and
his heart stopped and we had to bury him in the ground.
So he's actually on a rock. So I'm not sure at what stage
she realised that he wasn't sitting under the rock, but
anyway. No, thank you for sharing that.
And I think, and I think why it's important to share that
(08:50):
because a lot of people see where people are at this point
in time, you know, July the 4th as we spoke about.
But our stories start well, well, many, many, many years
ago. And I guess, you know, as you
spoke about, your life changed quite dramatically.
And I guess what was what was Roslyn doing the day before this
(09:11):
happened? And what what trigger was the
trigger of a change in how Roslyn's life looked after in
the way you're looking at the world?
We, as I said, well we'd bought into, we'd bought into, pardon
me, the partnership and Kevin was just doing the last minute
touch ups, paintings and things on the eaves.
(09:31):
Actually that's what happened. And turned out the, the, the
roof was alive with electricity,which we didn't find out until
it was too late. But before that we had the girls
and I had been on a holiday up to Anna Bay.
We'd taken the tent and we had alovely few days up there in the,
(09:53):
in the surf, in the sun and going, doing things that you do.
And when we came back that afternoon was the last time that
the girl saw him. So I, we had, we'd driven home
and his sister lived in Sydney. She'd invited the girls down for
a few days in the school holidays, which was something
(10:16):
which she always did. And the girls had a lovely time,
Got spoiled to death, which is what aunties do, isn't it?
And so and so I dropped, I delivered when we got home, like
it went down to the site where Kevin was and at the other house
and the girl said goodbye and we'll see you next week sort of
(10:39):
thing. So he came home and got
organised and went to Sydney andI dropped the girls off and by
about 9:30 I was ready to come back home and I tried to ring a
few times, rang a few places andRajesh, this just before the
time of mobile phones. This is 38 years ago, something
(11:04):
now 36 years. And I tried a couple of friends,
and I thought, I know that he wasn't there.
So I thought I was too late to start ringing people.
I just drive home. So just as Murphy's Law, the
brakes on my car caused me a problem as I was hitting the
freeway. Yeah.
And at that stage, I was too frightened to stop on the
(11:28):
freeway because there was no mobile phones to ring anybody.
So I just drove home in second gear very slowly and it took me
forever and and I got home aboutmidnight and then I realised he
wasn't at home. I didn't the car, we have two
vehicles and the other, the other car wasn't there.
(11:48):
So I thought, oh, whenever I walked up and down the street, I
didn't walk up and I was like a maniac at this stage.
I couldn't find him anywhere at the where is he?
What's going on? You know, went up and down and
my sister lived in the country and she was visiting mum and dad
who also lived around the cornerin Saratoga.
And so I rang her and I said I'msorry to ring you at this hour
(12:11):
than night or morning. And I said but I need to get you
to drive me down to the house orcan I come and get the car?
And she said no, I'll come down with you.
So, and I had briefly said Kevin's not home and I, the only
place he would be, would be at the house.
So we went down there and as soon as I drove into the street
(12:32):
and saw the car in the driveway,I thought, oh, something's
happened. So we thought we were raced into
the house, looked in all the bedrooms, nobody there, he
wasn't there at all. Anyway, so then we started to
come back out of the house and started to look around and there
he was beside the fence and the ladder that he'd had been on had
(12:54):
fallen over. And I thought, oh, he must have
just fallen off the ladder. Anyway, of course he had arms
and legs in all sorts of naturalpositions.
And gosh, I can remember I was abit like a caged animal.
I was laid all over the top of him.
He was so cold because he'd beendead for so long.
And I laid over the top of him to try and warm him up and he
(13:15):
wouldn't answer and it was terrible.
Anyway, we ended up the next door neighbors heard all the
commotion and they rang Triple O.
And so we had SES and the ambulance and police and
detectives and everybody there and the poor, you know what?
The poor constable who was talking to me after at the end
(13:38):
of all of this, it was the firsttime he'd been to an accident
like this and the first time he'd experienced a death on
site. So and he this, I mean, he was
wonderful, absolutely wonderful,lovely and warm chap and really,
really, really knew his stuff. He did his job so well.
(13:58):
I just but I didn't find out until afterwards that he would,
that he was a novice at that. But anyhow, we eventually and I,
I became absolutely paranoid andabout I want, I didn't want to
lose his body. I didn't.
And I wanted to go in the ambulance with him.
And they, of course they wouldn't let me, they were
(14:20):
taking him to the Mortuary. So and I said I wouldn't go
down, you know, I'll follow, I'll follow.
And they said no, no, do you have to go home and get some
rest or whatever you want to do Anyway, So, and all I wanted to
do then was just go home to the safety of my house, my own
house. My sister wanted me to go back
to her mum and dad's. And I said no, no, no, I want to
(14:41):
go home. I wanted to, you know, be where
he had been present, You know, Anyhow, the one of the other
things that that the next morning, fairly early in the
morning, detective came and and no, it was the next day, I think
the next day. And he suggested to me that I
(15:02):
shouldn't leave town because I was the last person to see Kevin
alone. And I thought I, that usually
just happens in the movies. Did he actually say that to me
that I, and I said, you know, I'm not going anywhere.
Why did I go anywhere? I've just lost my husband.
And he, he didn't get my point of view at all.
And, you know, again, he was just doing his job that it's
(15:23):
just interesting how you react in those in those times, you
know, And I had to ring his, hisbest mate, the boss, the, the
fellow that he was just bought into the partnership with and
tell him that his best mate was dead.
I had to ring his brother who also lived up here and tell him
(15:46):
his mum lived in Sydney and his sister lived in Sydney as well.
So that was probably two of the most difficult phone calls I've
ever made, I think. Then we went to Sydney and I, I
went down to Margaret, came withme, my sister came with me to go
(16:08):
and pick the girls up. And by the time I got down
there, Kevin's sister knew what had happened.
And of course she was distressed.
And by the time I got there, thekids were sort of wondering
what's going on, maybe, you know, something's happened.
And I said Dad's had an accident.
And they said, oh, is he OK? And I said, well, no, he's not.
And they said, can we fix him? I said, no, I don't think we
(16:32):
can. It's hadn't, it's been an
electrical accident and he's notalive anymore.
And I, I had no idea how to tellthem.
I, I don't know what does appear, you know, when do you,
when do you learn that in the parents school?
You don't, you know. So, so anyway, we, we, we came
(16:53):
home from there and on the way home, I called in at the, my
doctor's surgery and just said, you know, this is what's
happened and what have you. And he gave me some prescription
to calm me down. Oh goodness, what it was, I
don't even know what it was now.I can't remember.
(17:14):
Anyway, I went home and had a couple of, because I'd been
awake for more than 24 hours at this point.
And, and I had a couple of hourssleep and then woke up and just
faced the nightmare all over again.
So, and, and it just went on from there.
And my life wasn't the same fromthat time that I found him and
never been the same since. Never, never will be so.
(17:36):
And my daughters have been, they're just amazing.
They've grown into magnificent women.
They've made good choices in their lives.
And because I always said to them, you know, doesn't matter
how angry or frustrated or dejected you feel, don't use
that as an excuse to behave badly.
(17:58):
And maybe I was too tough on them.
I don't know. I've read a fair bit since about
how to how to, you know, work with, work with or teach your
children or, you know, whatever after something like this.
And I just gave them the answersas honestly as I could.
(18:21):
And that's about the best you can do, I think, you know, just
be there. We had a photograph and it's up
on the wall outside now of Kevinand we called it the boohoo
photo. And whenever one was anyone was
having a boohoo day, they took the photo with them.
(18:41):
And we I always knew who was distressed.
I mean, you know, anyway, but I always knew the location of a
photo was always and I used it myself.
I had my own boohoo days, which was to be expected, I guess.
Yeah. So that was good.
We they've all gone and and beento university and done really,
(19:03):
really good things and they've travelled a lot, all of them and
they have wonderful lives. There are magnificent people.
I'm very proud of them. Amazing.
Yeah, I have it. Yeah.
Now, again, it's such, the storyis so, so beautiful there
because what? I use the word beautiful because
it articulates where you've comefrom and where you're at the
moment and the fact that, you know, yes, you had the boohoo
(19:26):
days and as you see your life changed dramatically.
But what I have really enjoyed learning about you is that it
you haven't that defined you in a way that is deliberate,
deliberate, deliberating. It's actually, from what I'm
understanding, it's it's grown you and allowed you to take on
the world in a whole different way.
(19:46):
And you know, you speak about being proud of your daughter's
going to university, But one thing that I'm not going to
shift is about you. You know, you also use the
courage to do an MBA. And what is that like, Theo?
Was that even in the horizons orwas it hey this is my world has
changed and MBA here I come. That's right.
It's all about and everything wedo requires courage.
And that's what I've got in my keynote as well.
(20:09):
I, I'd sort of had this imaginary bucket of courage and
I dip into the bucket again today.
I can't do this, you know, So, and that's what I did time and
time again and everything you doand it's all about and
resilience, you know, but if youlook, have a look at a piece of
elastic now, elastic is described as being resilient,
(20:30):
but it's flippy, floppy. Nothing happens to it unless you
do something to that elastic andmake it work.
And that's where the courage comes in.
If you, if you take the courage,move the elastic, you'll find
the resilience And it's just, you just have to do it.
(20:51):
There's no easy way to to do it.You just have to be courageous
in your life. It takes courage to get married,
to have children, buy a house, all, everything that you do,
change the job, you know, take up paddle boarding, whatever you
do, you've got to be courageous.You've got to have a go.
And so that's what life's all about.
(21:13):
Sure. And I love, I love that because
the world that I work in, I talkabout crossroads that every
single day we come through crossroads in our life every
single day. You know, you, when the alarm
goes off, that's your first crossroad.
Do I stay in bed or do I wake up?
What do I do? Right?
That's what we do. But I love the element of
courage that you have to add, because we all know where we we
(21:33):
all know in our minds what we'd like to do, but why don't we do
it? And as you said, the first step
is courage. And that courage might be asking
for help. Yeah, You know, and well, it is,
yeah. Somebody said to me the other
day, if you found somebody in your position, what would you
do? Because we call it, we were
talking about casseroles and condolences, which is what
(21:55):
people offer. And they'd say, oh, just let me
know if you need anything. But that immediately places the
onus back on the grieving, grieving person.
And I mean, grief is something we just, nobody talks about
grief. We don't.
And that's such a shame because everybody deals with grief in
such a different way. I, I said to this, this person,
(22:16):
I would ask the person, the, the, the bereft person what they
need. Do you need me to pick up the
children? Do you need bread?
Do you, do you need me to take your car and get petrol in it?
All the practicalities of life that you have to get on, you
know, that you have to get on with and I, you know, you've got
(22:37):
to become another two parents. The same with the widow.
He has to become somebody who does all the stuff around the
house or unless he can get somebody to do it for him, which
most men seem to do. And in fact, my husband had had
him had me, me insured for enough money to if anything
happened to me, he would have enough money to employ a a
(22:59):
housekeeper and things. And yet he was three weeks away
from taking out 1/4 of $1,000,000 insurance because of
all the change over with the build it, you know, the, the
business and everything else. So he just died 3 weeks too
early. I was very cross with him for
that for a long time. I can tell you I used to, I
(23:21):
became a, a, a, a crematorium junkie.
I used to go out every day and he got no idea the things I told
him. I I yelled at him, I screamed at
him and I told him I loved him and all the rest of it.
It's interesting. That's amazing what happens in
(23:42):
emotion, right? We'd be, you know, if you told
somebody that you'd be, you'd dothat.
You would be, what are you talking about?
Until it happens, because we don't know.
We don't know. We don't know.
No, that's all right. No, you don't.
And you don't know how you're going to react until that
actually happens, you know? Yeah.
And for me, it's just, it was just, as I said, one hour at a
time, just absolutely one hour at a time.
(24:04):
And that's all I could get to, all I could do.
Yep, 'cause I still had to get the car serviced.
I still had to make sure the mortgage was paid and all that.
And I couldn't do that for a just because of our funds were
frozen. He died in the January and funds
were frozen until August. I didn't get any because the
(24:26):
need for an inquest autopsy tooka week and then you have to get
the inquest. Well, there's six weeks after
the autopsy and went on and on and on and on.
And so we lived on thin air pretty much for quite a while.
It was pretty tricky. And I'd, I'd been working every
second weekend at the local health service and I had to go
(24:48):
back to work just to put food onthe table.
And that which was interesting in itself, trying to get back
into a hospital area where you know.
Yeah, yeah. And and again, you know, it's
just it's like you said, an an event happens, but life still
carries on. Life doesn't stop.
(25:10):
Yeah, it. Does.
Yeah, it does. And you know, and the other in
the running Congo with that is the love.
When, where do you put the love?It doesn't stop just because
he's not there anymore. And we put that, you know, and
the grief is often described as love with nowhere to go.
And it doesn't. Yeah.
(25:32):
Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't dissipate
straight away either. You sort of.
I've done a lot of research intothe types of grief.
I mean, we all know about Elizabeth Kubler Ross's research
in the five stages of grief. And I can tell you I went
through all of those. But the grief's now been
categorized into things like anticipatory grief, ambiguous
(25:56):
grief, complicated, traumatic, all of those sorts of things.
And that's been quite helpful tome to understand why I was so
stuck for so long, because I wasstuck in complicated, traumatic
grief. Really.
Yeah. And.
You know, what's what's, what's interesting there, Roslyn, as I
(26:19):
had a, a conversation with one of my clients a few weeks ago
and they work in a similar spaceto you.
And I said to them, what does everyone experience in life,
whether we like it or not? And I said, everyone experiences
grief. Everyone, everyone.
You know, sometimes it might be for something minor, something
major, but we all go through theemotion of grief.
And as you said before, there's so many different kinds of
(26:40):
grief, but we don't speak about it.
We just, we just wrap it under the, you know, hey everyone,
you're going to be fine. Time, time will heal all wounds
and maybe it will, but we need to have that conversation.
So I'm really glad that you thatyou're talking about this, but
in a way that is the bucket of carriageway, you know, which is
really beautiful and. As I if I just one of the other
things that I found was quite difficult is people don't know
(27:04):
what to say to you. And so they walk around the
other side of the supermarket aisle so they can avoid you and
that feels very personal, but it's not it's just that they
don't know what to say. So very quickly you become
addicted at dealing with other people's inadequacies.
You know, how do they Oh, I knowthey're just look, I'm not dead
(27:24):
yet. So you know that, that I used to
use that when I had cancer things, but oh, I'm still alive.
He's dead, but I'm not, you know, and that sort of stuff.
But it's really interesting, really, it's a whole and then
you get the thing where the, the, the guys come around and do
all that, all the odd jobs and things.
(27:46):
All his mates would come around,do the odd jobs and things and
around the house and things. And doesn't take long before the
women start to resent that. And I, I had no idea that all of
that was happening. I just had, I had no idea that
that was how people behaved, youknow, and I stopped being
invited to things. And, you know, and the first
(28:07):
time I had some counselling about it, the council said,
well, if you were fat and ugly you wouldn't have to worry
really anyway. But it's, yeah, sorry, I've got
a bit of hate here today, No. That's all right.
That's all right. Humans are fascinating.
Yeah, so, so fascinating. And what we do and we don't do,
and also the perception and the stories people tell themselves
(28:29):
about, you know, what's a good intention becomes a whole
different story in someone else's mind.
It's interesting also that that that grief is not only about
death. Grief can be separation, a
divorce, you know, it's about loss as well.
And that the biggest, it's like to me that it was absolutely
(28:50):
such gut wrenching sadness that you couldn't do anything about.
And that just it's a massive, massive loss from everything you
used to have. You lose your future.
You never lose what you've had because you've always had that.
But you lose your future becausethere's it's never going to be
(29:11):
the same. And he's not there to share it
with you. And the children lose their
father. It's just, it's just such a
massive loss. And I think it, as I say, it's
not only does it doesn't only relate to grief, it's all the
other things that they lost in their lives.
You know, that's the financial freedom that we would have had
(29:33):
they lost friends because friends didn't know how to treat
them and that sort of stuff. So as well, you know, and it's
people that lose jobs if people be made redundant, that's a
terrible sense of loss as well. So.
Yeah, yeah. And, and it's really great how
you put that the young people think about grief in terms of
death. But as you said, grief can be
(29:54):
anything. You know, you're if you know the
fact that your car breaks down, even that could send you grief.
Oh, no, I can't get to work. I can't pick up my child.
I can't. You know, those are simple
things. We can't invalidate those
feelings because they grief, it comes.
It's just loss. Whatever loss is, you know,
we'll, we'll go through that as we said before.
(30:14):
Sorry. Sorry, sorry.
There's one of the interesting types of.
Well, they're all interesting intheir own rights, but the, the
ambiguous grief is sort of when perhaps I think it's often
described as somebody who has, say, Alzheimer's and they don't
(30:37):
know who you are anymore. They, they, and you start
grieving, you know, for somebodyor you're still looking at that
person, but they don't know who you are.
There's anticipatory grief with people who have, say, a child
with say, brain cancer or something, you know, and, or an
inoperable anything and that child won't survive.
(30:58):
So you start grieving from the point of, of diagnosis or from,
you know, that that time it's like, and a community grief
where, where for when? Remember when, when you had all
the cyclones and things in, in Auckland?
I remember because my daughter was there and the roof blew off
(31:20):
the shopping centre at Glendale and things and massive community
things where everybody feels thesame, everybody has the same
loss. They lose houses, they lose
cars, they lose, you know, access to services and that sort
of thing. So there's all, there's so much,
so many different types of griefnow.
I mean, they're always there, but they were never defined that
(31:41):
way, you know? So, yeah, and, and I think what
I'm going to do is I'm going to switch the focus because we've
got the grief. And I'm going to talk about the
same side of the coin, but the opposite emotion is, which is
where you're already speaking to, is courage.
Courage. And I'd love for you to tell us
about how you came up with a bucket of courage and your
(32:03):
concept around that is somethingthat you'd like to go and take
to the world. Well, my heart was breaking
basically. And I just and of course the
etymology of courage is cool. It comes from cool, which is in
your heart. And I thought, well, you know,
(32:26):
what can I do with my heart that's breaking?
I need something to fix it. And I don't know.
I just came up with the idea of the of the the bucket and filled
it up with courage and I'd use it every day.
That's I don't it just sort of something I invented I guess.
And and you invented it, and nowit's something you want, you
(32:47):
want to. Why do you think this is
important for the world to hear about?
Because you need it. Basically, you need it with
everything you do. And if you haven't always have
your bucket of courage there, you will be able to draw on it
when you need it and, and identifying when you need it is
(33:07):
going to be the the issue. I guess I think I can't do this
today and your bucket's there. Well, I'll just dip into my
bucket and I will, I'll do what I have to do.
Whether you like to do it or not, you have to.
There are things, as we all knowthat the things that you have to
do and it's just very handy to have your bucket close by you
(33:32):
wherever you are. Yeah, and you know, it doesn't
have to be a real 1. You could have a real bucket if
you wanted to, just to remind you.
But it's something that, as you said before, we we use it all
the time and picking on some courageous themes in your life
as well. You know, we spoke about the
NBA, you know, as you said before, you remarried, but also
(33:54):
you're a musician as well. Well, that's that part of your
world because that requires courage to be a musician.
You know, we don't think, we don't think of that, but it is a
courageous thing. Music is what?
How does that live and come intoyour?
World it's a funny story about all that I actually, I went to I
grew up in the Bush in the country and we didn't have a
(34:15):
high school in those days and and I'd been trying to learn the
piano from the time that I just could stand and play the piano
here and I had piano lessons andthey the nuns at the convent
where I was learning would say, you know, Rosalind would be good
if she could have some more lessons somewhere else in
(34:38):
Sydney. So I cut a Long story short.
I was lucky enough to be able togo to the Conservatorium of
Music and they have a high school there.
So I did my high school in at, at the Conservatorium, which was
absolutely wonderful. So I have got a classical
background, but I got into and you can see the record on the
back of the wall there. That's from one of my shows.
(34:58):
I was a musical director from Shout, the story of Johnny
O'Keefe. And I got involved in musical
theatre on the coast here by, oh, not by accident.
It was quite funny. They, they, there's a local
businessman here who rang my home and I wasn't home.
(35:19):
And Kevin said I'll get her to ring you back.
And I had my own studio teachinghere and I was teaching at the
conservatorium here and at the local grammar school.
And I used to send kids for a steadfast and all that sort of
stuff. So most people on the coast knew
me and my music teaching. And so I said to my husband, I'm
(35:45):
I'm not going to ring him. I don't want to buy a car.
Don't just don't do that. Don't.
Anyway, the gentleman rang, rangagain and I did the same thing.
And then the my husband said to me, you're being very rude, you
really should ring him back. So I rang him back and what had
happened? They they needed a musical
director for a show that a production of half a sixpence,
which they were putting on in five weeks now.
(36:10):
Yeah, Oh, wow. I had no idea what I was getting
into. No idea.
And some of the, the, the, the songs they couldn't sing in the
right keys and all that sort of stuff.
There was no orchestra prepared.And in those days you didn't
have backing tracks or anything like that.
We had, you know, 1518 piece orchestra that we did.
Anyway, that was my introduction.
I did it and we got it. We got, we had a good show.
(36:33):
It was really good. And that was a baptism of fire.
And I had left and that, that was 401984, I think so 41 years
ago. Yeah.
More than half my life I spent there.
I had a bit, I had a couple of what, 18 months or 20 months off
after Kevin died because I couldn't, I just, I kept crying.
(36:57):
I couldn't play my own piano. I've got 3 pianos here.
I couldn't play. I just kept crying while ever I
tried music. Anyway, I went went in, I got
the bucket of courage going and I I went in one evening they
were having a rehearsal and I burst into tears and they just
said, come on, we're just havinga rehearsal come and listen.
And that was it. I though I, it was just, it's
(37:20):
one of those things where a community, the, the value of a
community is really not, not understood because that was so,
so healing for me. It was really a place I went on
to do about 15 or 16 shows, 15 shows as a musical director.
(37:42):
And I've done a couple of things, two or three things on
stage and played in heaps of orchestras more than I my age.
And it's, it's just been, it's the most amazing place.
We help all sorts of people, people who feel they don't
belong, you know, they come in and enjoy the camaraderie and
(38:05):
it's just amazing you interacting with people with the
same like minds and same interests and that as long as
they leave their ego, ego at thedoor, which most of them don't
so. Oh, well, it sounds like there
was a slender moment when that happened, and it's just changed
(38:26):
the way your life has been. What you know that's one moment,
5 weeks and here you are it's very beautiful and talking about
beautiful Roslyn, you've also you've also you've also been the
volunteer of volunteer of the year.
You know this, this doesn't comelightly because people recognize
the work that you do. And what is it like for you?
(38:47):
Because we don't, I mean, I don't know about you, but I
don't go into the world to try and get recognition when you're
giving from the heart. When you were announced or told
that you were the CEO volunteer of the year, how did that make
you feel? Oh, I, it was very humbling
actually. I, I got a little thingy when I,
(39:07):
I was being nominated and, and I, you know, thought this, I
just, I just didn't think that Iwould ever be in that position.
And this was with the Cancer Council.
I've been volunteering with themfor 10 years and we, my role
with them was an advocate who goes to that for people who in
(39:32):
the community who need assistance with cancer and
whether it's A and when you get like I've had breast cancer
twice and, and when you have, itimpacts everybody, not just the
patient. And that's often, in the old
days anyway, it was less understood than it is now.
(39:53):
I mean, people like Glenn McGrath with the McGrath nurses
have done a wonderful thing because he's now branching out
into every kind of cancer, not just breast cancer.
But in the old days it was a death sentence really.
But now 92% of breast cancer patients survive more than five
(40:14):
years. Well, I've been surviving for 29
years now and I'm going to continue to do that.
But it's just. I don't know, I just, I was
really happy to give back to theCancer Council because I had
such a good experience and I, you know, such a good result.
Basically. I wouldn't say the experience
was good, never was. But I mean, nothing really
(40:37):
particularly nice about having chemo and radiation, but it's
certainly, you know, it's a good.
And my mantra with them is always make sure you have your,
and because I'm a theatrical person, I call it a screen test,
your free screening. So make sure you have your
screen test and, and be diligentabout looking after yourself.
That's the way that that works. But I, I'm very, very privileged
(41:02):
actually to, to, and I just feltso humbling.
I just wouldn't have thought that that would ever happen to
me because you don't, you don't do those things for, as you say,
for recognition. It's and I almost felt selfish
about it in a way because I get so much satisfaction from it.
And so it's giving me a whole lot of stuff just to just
(41:24):
because I'm doing that for somebody else, it's.
Yeah. Yeah, it's good.
It's it's, it's, it's, it's all that is right in in giving that
you receive and in giving without an intention, you
receive without an expectation. And you know, this is a, this is
a real life story of that's happening to you, where you were
doing stuff just because you, asyou said before, you had a
(41:45):
fantastic relationship with them.
And the end result is, you know,you're here today and I'm doing
this amazing, as you say today, amazing Mahi and his beautiful,
beautifulness. But at the, at the age of 80
right now, and I and I use it inthe most beautiful way because
you have such an amazing spark to you.
(42:06):
You keep going. Where does the drive come from
for you to go? Hey, you know, there's still
more for me to learn. I want to get out there and do
things. What's your drive?
What what? What's your why I guess?
What's my why? My why is I've been a very lucky
person. I, I've had, I mean, my parents
went to back to me so I could come and learn music down here.
(42:28):
That's just amazing, really. Some, a lot of parents wouldn't
have been able to do that, wouldnot have had the opportunity or
made the, the made the resourcesavailable to do that.
They changed their lives to do that and I was lucky.
I, I went, travelled overseas and that's where I met my
husband, my first husband and three beautiful children.
(42:52):
I, you know, almost lost a couple of them in, you know, in
utero that we, they're beautifulchildren.
They've also all done well. And my mum and dad, I looked
after them for a while after they moved to the coast and
(43:13):
they, I'm just thinking they came to live with me for a
little while because they had dementia and mum, dad had
dementia and mum got really sicktrying to look after him and
things. And my daughter, my oldest girl
was doing year 10 and I was making a dress for her, for her
U10 formal. And I thought I've got to do
this when there's nobody around.So I got up at 3:00 in the
(43:34):
morning and I'm got all the big,oh all the big dining room table
with all the fabric all lined out, all beautiful, ready to
start cutting and all the rest. Next minute Dad comes paddling
out. What are you doing girl?
I said I'm just making Shana's dress.
Oh, can I help you? I said, well how about you make
a cup of coffee anyway, so that he made a cup of cup of tea
(43:56):
actually, and I thought that'll keep him busy for 4550 minutes
while I can get this cut out. Anyway, he walked over after
he'd made the cup of tea and he put it right down the middle of
the fabric. Oh golly.
Anyway, I had enough to cut another panel, which was really
good. But now they, they, they both
passed away 14 months after Kevin actually.
(44:18):
And they died 5 weeks apart, which was very difficult.
So, and then at the end of that year, I had a girlfriend who
committed suicide and, and, and my sister's partner passed away
as well. So I had five significant deaths
in sort of 18 months. And I mean to say, I was on
first name terms with the Funeral Home.
(44:41):
I rang and they'd say, oh, now who is it this time sort of
thing. So that, you know, they were
wonderful and was good. So, you know, I'm lucky that
I've been able to, you know, fight my way to get through all
of that. And I was lucky that I was able
to do an MBA because in those days, I, I finished that while I
(45:01):
was having my chemo. And in those days, they didn't
take very kindly to people working at home.
It was very difficult. And, and anyway, I convinced
them that I could still be productive even if it was, you
know, 9:00 at night or whatever,or whenever I wasn't feeling
unwell from the chemo. So, and I, I achieved that,
(45:21):
which was really good. So, and then lucky to be married
to such a lovely man. Now we've been married for 28
years. I was eight years on my own and
he's, he's a lovely man and the he didn't have any children of
his own and my girls love him topieces, which is really good.
And he's now a poppy. He didn't have any children of
(45:43):
his own and he's a lovely poppy to the kids.
So it's really, really, really nice.
And that's, that's pretty special for me to be able to,
you know, that that's, I think it's lovely that and it's, yeah,
very lucky. Yeah, it's, you know, you're the
why comes across so, so clearly.And what I love about across
(46:05):
then is there are so many incidents, incidents in your
life where you could have just given up or just change, change
the story, change the narrative.And I'm sure you know, this in
this podcast, we don't go into the emotions that you would have
gone to and there would have been times when you were, as you
said before, like, Oh no, but they just break it up into an
hour by hour and where you are today.
(46:25):
And that why, which comes through so strongly.
And one thing that I've noticed in the whole conversation we've
had is the pride that you have for your family, you know, that
just comes through so, so clearly, which is really
beautiful. So you when you speak about
that, why it's really, really beautiful for me to see and for
our listeners to hear as well. And you know, if you ever, if
you're listening, going, hey, you know, life sucks and life
(46:47):
does suck. Life is a roller coaster until
it is. It's ups and downs.
But hey, maybe you could find your own boohoo, picture your
boohoo, quote your boohoo, and just embrace that for a while
and go ahead. This is this is OK.
It is, I mean, I, you know, I, I, I, I just think I'm just such
a lucky person. I mean, I was awarded an Order
(47:10):
of Australia for all the stuff that I've done in the community.
And you know, that's just prettyspecial really that and that,
that in itself was a really interesting experience.
I, you know, you go down to Government House and feel pretty
special and all the rest of it. And then you get all the people
(47:30):
who say, oh, well, if she got one, they're not worth much, you
know, all the, all the knockers and things.
And you know, life's, life's really very interesting.
And I think if you, I, I, I did a gig for the Cancer Council the
other day. I do a lot of, you know, for
their speaking for Australia's because morning teas.
(47:50):
Do you have morning teas like the Cancer Council in New
Zealand? I don't.
Know I'm I'm sure the other day yeah.
I think you do, yeah, yes. And they go and raise funds and
all that sort of stuff. And, and as I'm a guest speaker
for them, and it's interesting because this this one that I did
the other day, the girl said to me I was getting so been so
(48:12):
miserable. She said there's so much, you
know, rubbish and stuff going onin the world and everything's
negative and it's really awful. And she said organising this and
doing this morning tea has showed her how much good and
warmth and love there is in the world.
Because so many people had me donate their time and their and
(48:37):
whatever they give so that people to raise money for Cancer
Council. So and and I just thought that's
such a lovely story, isn't it? You know, with everything that's
being so negative at the moment and you get somebody who gives a
real aha moment about how lovelypeople are down, you know, deep
down. So it's really, it's quite good
(48:57):
I think. Yeah, and, and what are what
are, you know, one of the, the things I've learned over over
time is every single one of us is inherently good.
You know, we don't wake up in the morning to make someone have
a bad day. We don't none of us do that
there. But life sometimes throws in
situations where it ends up happening.
But when you go to bed and wake up in the morning as you don't
go, I'm going to make Rosa's life terrible today.
(49:19):
No one does that there. So it's really beautiful.
People acknowledge that there, as you said, in the world where
if we look at the noise in the media, we think the world is the
world is crumbling in certain places.
But at the individual level, in your own sphere, it's very, very
different. And you know, it's again, it's,
it's a big acknowledgement to you, Rosalind, that, you know,
(49:39):
you were awarded the award of Australia.
You've got the sea of volunteer,you've got all these really
amazing accolades. But if we take all that away, to
me, I just see someone that's that is that is here because
they want to share with the world that hey, courage comes in
all forms and we all, we can allput our hands into the bucket
(50:01):
and use the courage. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
And make it a pretty large bucket because there's times
when you'll need a lot of it. Yeah, beautiful.
Rosen, Rosen, we've been speaking for almost an hour and
time has just flown by itself so, so quick, which is amazing.
And you know, there's so much inyour life that we haven't
touched, but I think what you shared today is is beautiful.
(50:24):
But before I end the, the episode today we have a, we have
a tradition and a podcast, whichis called a podcast called Basks
of Knowledge. And we invite our guests to
share a piece of knowledge to put into our basket.
You've shared so much today, butis there any piece of knowledge
you'd like myself or our guests to to put into our into our
basket in any part of your life?Just use your courage.
(50:49):
Just give design. Your own bucket can be large,
small, square, whatever you want.
However you you feel. Design yourself a bucket, fill
it up with courage, and use it every day, every time you need
it, because it's always there and courage comes from the
heart. I love that.
So Yep, go and design your bucket, whatever shape, whatever
(51:11):
size, and use it. And I guess Rosen, it's it's
limitless, right? The courage doesn't stop the
bucket. The bucket is always full.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep, beautiful. Rosen.
Rosen. Any last things before I say
goodbye to you this afternoon? Any that last words for listers
of myself? No, thank you for having me as a
(51:33):
as a guest. It's an honour to actually be
able to hear to and to speak with you today.
I think if anybody hears this and gets something out of it,
then we've achieved a lot today.I think that's that's very good.
And I just keep doing what you're doing because I think
it's wonderful. Thank you.
(51:53):
Amazing, Roslyn. And if people want to get hold
of you, how, how, how could theydo that?
You know, they've heard the story go hi Roslyn, you're
amazing. How can we get hold of you?
You can find me at roslynenglishspeaker@gmail.com
and that that will find me. For the moment, I'm just
midstream with setting up my website
andthingssobutroslynenglishspeaker@gmail.com.Awesome.
(52:19):
So if you're out there and you go, I need someone inspirational
at one of my talks, there we go right there.
Roslyn, englishspeaker@gmail.comRoslyn, it's been a been a real
pleasure and a privilege having you on today.
And to me, it's quite a crazy full circle moment for you, for
me. Listen to 4th of July, 10 years
ago, 4th of July. You know, we're sharing your tip
(52:39):
of tip of your story today, which is really beautiful.
I can't, I can't wait to see howI'm going to grow by just being
in a proximity, even though it'sonline.
And today just hearing your story reminds me of my own male
factor. Hey, Courage is available.
I'm just going to dip into it inthose moments when I think I
don't have any courage. It's.
(53:00):
Free. It's free.
It's free. You don't have to.
You don't have to pay anybody for that.
Yeah. Thank you, Ross.
And so much Alice is out there. Thank you so much for listening
in. Hopefully you have picked up
something today. If you haven't picked up
something, go back and listen again because I'm sure you
weren't listening. This has been a really
inspirational, aspirational and really positive conversation.
(53:20):
So next time, everybody, don't forget to find a reason to
smile. Don't forget to find your bucket
of courage. And most important of all, don't
forget to put something into your boss of knowledge.
Till next time, talk you to. Bye everybody.
Peace. Thank you for listening to
(53:40):
Bossets of Knowledge. Yeah, we hope that you found
something useful to put into your boss of knowledge.
And as we said before, remember to put something little into
your boss of knowledge every week.
And as always, feel free to like, comment and share this
podcast. Thanks, everybody.
Bye.
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh herein Tana here.
Welcome to our podcast, Passes of knowledge chats with a
difference. In our podcast, we invite guests
from around the country and around the world to talk about
how they got to where they at the moment.
It's about a journey, it's aboutan experience, it's about their
life. Kiriko February, welcome to
(00:27):
another episode of Baskets of Knowledge.
Just me today, Tan. I can't join us.
He's away doing some other cool things as he normally is, which
is really awesome. And it's always, I love to see
what I've put into my basket of knowledge over the last few
weeks. And the one thing that I have
put into my baskets of knowledgeover the the last few weeks is
the power of reflection. So why the power of reflection
(00:49):
is because I've just realized that a lot of us do some really
cool things in our lives, but wedon't even take time to pause
and reflect and celebrate those those achievements.
A lot of the times we look at those big things like a new job,
a new career, a new car, those big milestones.
But over the last few weeks, I was challenged by one of my
coaches to think about the smallwins and the reflections and
(01:12):
celebrating those. And my challenge to all this is
out there is think about the small wins that you have had and
how you actually celebrated them.
Or do you wait for the big wins to celebrate?
And my challenge for you is to find that small one to
celebrate. It doesn't have to be
extravagant, just it could just be a dance.
It could be buying yourself a cupcake, whatever it is.
(01:33):
But that's my challenge for you.But hey, we're not here to
listen to me because if we do, Icould be talking forever.
As always. We scour the world and we scour
the country to find people that we think are interesting.
We know that everyone is interesting out there.
Everyone's got a story to tell and if I could, I'll make this
my full time job, but I'm not Joe Rogan yet, so we don't get
(01:54):
paid for this yet. But one day Joe Rogan will be
coming for you. And today I'm really excited and
really honored and really privileged to introduce our
guest. This is a person that is coming
to my sphere just recently. Over the last few months, I have
been training in the world of public speaking and professional
speaking. And through that I've met some
really interesting people. And the person that we're going
(02:15):
to introduce this this this today is someone that popped
into my sphere and has shield just some just a small bit of a
life and just buried the small bit of life.
I was like, wow, what an amazingperson, what an amazing human.
Not just what they've been through, but where they are
right now. And it's really, like I said
(02:36):
before, privilege to have them on our podcast today.
So without further ado, Kiora, and welcome to pastors of
Knowledge Roslyn. Kerryora Prajesh.
Yeah, thank you Roslyn. Roslyn, For those of us who know
nothing about you, who is Roslyntoday, on July the 4th, 2025?
Actually, it's an auspicious daybecause I'm the 4th of July 2015
(03:00):
was I retired from my full time profession, so 10 years today.
I thought 4th of July was a veryappropriate day on which to put
my pen down. Amazing.
You put your pen down and now you can use your voice to tell
us about that, which is so cool.Yes, Yep.
Yeah, So what? What is Roslyn up to on the 4th
(03:21):
of July 2025? Today I have been online with a
session from about. Gosh, then what they, it was
about selling from the stage, wasn't it?
(03:41):
And how to close after you've done a speaking gig.
So it's, it's part of the publicand professional speaking that
I'm learning about. It's been part of my journey to
transform, I guess from somebodywho was stuck for many, many
(04:01):
years into somebody who's now moving forward and and quite a
different person to be quite honest.
Yeah. And I and I love that and I love
that. And I and I would love to just
touch on the fact. Do you want to tell our
listeners how old you are? And I'm going to talk about why
that's important. I will be 80 in December this
year. Amazing, amazing.
(04:22):
And why is that why I want to touch on this because at 80
years old, Roslyn is still out there learning.
And for those of you that are listening, going, I'm too old to
learn. Roslyn is a clear example of
like, hey, it's not too, too late to learn ever.
So This is why it's really, really inspiring.
But Roslyn, this is where you are today.
And if we reverse back and talk about, you know, your early,
(04:43):
early life, one of the things that really stood out for me in
your story that you shared was your life changed quite
dramatically in an instant when you came home one day.
Should we go back and start start the story there I guess?
Yes, yes, this is back on the 8th of January 1989.
My date never to be forgotten. I came back from Sydney and I in
(05:11):
the middle of the night, around 12:30 at night, I found my
husband dead to be quiet and he'd been electrocuted.
It was an electrical accident and he'd been thrown off a
ladder and of course the electrocution of course gave him
an instant cardiac arrest. So and he'd been dead for about
(05:32):
7 or 8 hours. So it wasn't pretty, certainly
not something you want anybody to see, but there you have it.
It was we'd he he was working onon a house that we had built a
project home that we were going to use to leapfrog and build our
(05:54):
forever home, which is where I'mliving now.
I built the house after he passed away, but it's a much
smaller version than than we hadplanned.
But it was I had, we were in themiddle of a whole lot of
financial and legal restructure.My husband had just bought into
(06:14):
an accounting practice. He'd been working there with his
best mate. And so we had all those legal
issues to resolve. We were, we had the Park Place
that we'd sold was put on the market and we actually exchanged
the contracts the morning that he passed away.
So it was and because his death was an accident, we had to have
(06:41):
an autopsy and an inquest and ohGod, the first inquest fell over
and the technicality because somebody didn't have
representation and all that sortof stuff.
So it was pretty. It was a pretty terrible time.
You spoke just before Rajesh about small wins.
At that time my small win was one hour and I can remember
(07:04):
every day I'd get up and think if I can get through the next
hour, I'll survive. If I can get through the next
hour, I'll survive. And that's honestly how I did
survive. Just one hour at a time until I
felt I could just move further forward, a little bit further, a
week at a time and that sort of thing.
So I took it very easily. We had three young children who
(07:25):
were 1012 and 13 and I can honestly say without them I I
don't know what I would have done.
They gave me a reason to get up every day and they gave me
things to do so that I could getthrough the day, you know, which
was very interesting. I, it was a really, really tough
time for them and very hard to them.
(07:47):
The, the oldest girl was 14 and 13.
Actually, she hadn't, she was about to turn 14.
And the other one was starting high school.
How hard was that for her, you know, leaving her, these being
her other, you know, primary school friends, making new
friends, new high school, No, father pretty.
(08:08):
It was really hard for her. And the youngest one was 10.
She didn't quite understand because I can remember one night
was sitting at dinner and she said to me, what did you do with
dad? I said, what do you mean?
She said, well, where is he? What happened to him?
Where did you put him? And I thought, well, I'm not at
the age of 10, I'm not about to try and explain cremation.
(08:28):
So I just sort of said, well, hehad an accident as you know, and
his heart stopped and we had to bury him in the ground.
So he's actually on a rock. So I'm not sure at what stage
she realised that he wasn't sitting under the rock, but
anyway. No, thank you for sharing that.
And I think, and I think why it's important to share that
(08:50):
because a lot of people see where people are at this point
in time, you know, July the 4th as we spoke about.
But our stories start well, well, many, many, many years
ago. And I guess, you know, as you
spoke about, your life changed quite dramatically.
And I guess what was what was Roslyn doing the day before this
(09:11):
happened? And what what trigger was the
trigger of a change in how Roslyn's life looked after in
the way you're looking at the world?
We, as I said, well we'd bought into, we'd bought into, pardon
me, the partnership and Kevin was just doing the last minute
touch ups, paintings and things on the eaves.
(09:31):
Actually that's what happened. And turned out the, the, the
roof was alive with electricity,which we didn't find out until
it was too late. But before that we had the girls
and I had been on a holiday up to Anna Bay.
We'd taken the tent and we had alovely few days up there in the,
(09:53):
in the surf, in the sun and going, doing things that you do.
And when we came back that afternoon was the last time that
the girl saw him. So I, we had, we'd driven home
and his sister lived in Sydney. She'd invited the girls down for
a few days in the school holidays, which was something
(10:16):
which she always did. And the girls had a lovely time,
Got spoiled to death, which is what aunties do, isn't it?
And so and so I dropped, I delivered when we got home, like
it went down to the site where Kevin was and at the other house
and the girl said goodbye and we'll see you next week sort of
(10:39):
thing. So he came home and got
organised and went to Sydney andI dropped the girls off and by
about 9:30 I was ready to come back home and I tried to ring a
few times, rang a few places andRajesh, this just before the
time of mobile phones. This is 38 years ago, something
(11:04):
now 36 years. And I tried a couple of friends,
and I thought, I know that he wasn't there.
So I thought I was too late to start ringing people.
I just drive home. So just as Murphy's Law, the
brakes on my car caused me a problem as I was hitting the
freeway. Yeah.
And at that stage, I was too frightened to stop on the
(11:28):
freeway because there was no mobile phones to ring anybody.
So I just drove home in second gear very slowly and it took me
forever and and I got home aboutmidnight and then I realised he
wasn't at home. I didn't the car, we have two
vehicles and the other, the other car wasn't there.
(11:48):
So I thought, oh, whenever I walked up and down the street, I
didn't walk up and I was like a maniac at this stage.
I couldn't find him anywhere at the where is he?
What's going on? You know, went up and down and
my sister lived in the country and she was visiting mum and dad
who also lived around the cornerin Saratoga.
And so I rang her and I said I'msorry to ring you at this hour
(12:11):
than night or morning. And I said but I need to get you
to drive me down to the house orcan I come and get the car?
And she said no, I'll come down with you.
So, and I had briefly said Kevin's not home and I, the only
place he would be, would be at the house.
So we went down there and as soon as I drove into the street
(12:32):
and saw the car in the driveway,I thought, oh, something's
happened. So we thought we were raced into
the house, looked in all the bedrooms, nobody there, he
wasn't there at all. Anyway, so then we started to
come back out of the house and started to look around and there
he was beside the fence and the ladder that he'd had been on had
(12:54):
fallen over. And I thought, oh, he must have
just fallen off the ladder. Anyway, of course he had arms
and legs in all sorts of naturalpositions.
And gosh, I can remember I was abit like a caged animal.
I was laid all over the top of him.
He was so cold because he'd beendead for so long.
And I laid over the top of him to try and warm him up and he
(13:15):
wouldn't answer and it was terrible.
Anyway, we ended up the next door neighbors heard all the
commotion and they rang Triple O.
And so we had SES and the ambulance and police and
detectives and everybody there and the poor, you know what?
The poor constable who was talking to me after at the end
(13:38):
of all of this, it was the firsttime he'd been to an accident
like this and the first time he'd experienced a death on
site. So and he this, I mean, he was
wonderful, absolutely wonderful,lovely and warm chap and really,
really, really knew his stuff. He did his job so well.
(13:58):
I just but I didn't find out until afterwards that he would,
that he was a novice at that. But anyhow, we eventually and I,
I became absolutely paranoid andabout I want, I didn't want to
lose his body. I didn't.
And I wanted to go in the ambulance with him.
And they, of course they wouldn't let me, they were
(14:20):
taking him to the Mortuary. So and I said I wouldn't go
down, you know, I'll follow, I'll follow.
And they said no, no, do you have to go home and get some
rest or whatever you want to do Anyway, So, and all I wanted to
do then was just go home to the safety of my house, my own
house. My sister wanted me to go back
to her mum and dad's. And I said no, no, no, I want to
(14:41):
go home. I wanted to, you know, be where
he had been present, You know, Anyhow, the one of the other
things that that the next morning, fairly early in the
morning, detective came and and no, it was the next day, I think
the next day. And he suggested to me that I
(15:02):
shouldn't leave town because I was the last person to see Kevin
alone. And I thought I, that usually
just happens in the movies. Did he actually say that to me
that I, and I said, you know, I'm not going anywhere.
Why did I go anywhere? I've just lost my husband.
And he, he didn't get my point of view at all.
And, you know, again, he was just doing his job that it's
(15:23):
just interesting how you react in those in those times, you
know, And I had to ring his, hisbest mate, the boss, the, the
fellow that he was just bought into the partnership with and
tell him that his best mate was dead.
I had to ring his brother who also lived up here and tell him
(15:46):
his mum lived in Sydney and his sister lived in Sydney as well.
So that was probably two of the most difficult phone calls I've
ever made, I think. Then we went to Sydney and I, I
went down to Margaret, came withme, my sister came with me to go
(16:08):
and pick the girls up. And by the time I got down
there, Kevin's sister knew what had happened.
And of course she was distressed.
And by the time I got there, thekids were sort of wondering
what's going on, maybe, you know, something's happened.
And I said Dad's had an accident.
And they said, oh, is he OK? And I said, well, no, he's not.
And they said, can we fix him? I said, no, I don't think we
(16:32):
can. It's hadn't, it's been an
electrical accident and he's notalive anymore.
And I, I had no idea how to tellthem.
I, I don't know what does appear, you know, when do you,
when do you learn that in the parents school?
You don't, you know. So, so anyway, we, we, we came
(16:53):
home from there and on the way home, I called in at the, my
doctor's surgery and just said, you know, this is what's
happened and what have you. And he gave me some prescription
to calm me down. Oh goodness, what it was, I
don't even know what it was now.I can't remember.
(17:14):
Anyway, I went home and had a couple of, because I'd been
awake for more than 24 hours at this point.
And, and I had a couple of hourssleep and then woke up and just
faced the nightmare all over again.
So, and, and it just went on from there.
And my life wasn't the same fromthat time that I found him and
never been the same since. Never, never will be so.
(17:36):
And my daughters have been, they're just amazing.
They've grown into magnificent women.
They've made good choices in their lives.
And because I always said to them, you know, doesn't matter
how angry or frustrated or dejected you feel, don't use
that as an excuse to behave badly.
(17:58):
And maybe I was too tough on them.
I don't know. I've read a fair bit since about
how to how to, you know, work with, work with or teach your
children or, you know, whatever after something like this.
And I just gave them the answersas honestly as I could.
(18:21):
And that's about the best you can do, I think, you know, just
be there. We had a photograph and it's up
on the wall outside now of Kevinand we called it the boohoo
photo. And whenever one was anyone was
having a boohoo day, they took the photo with them.
(18:41):
And we I always knew who was distressed.
I mean, you know, anyway, but I always knew the location of a
photo was always and I used it myself.
I had my own boohoo days, which was to be expected, I guess.
Yeah. So that was good.
We they've all gone and and beento university and done really,
(19:03):
really good things and they've travelled a lot, all of them and
they have wonderful lives. There are magnificent people.
I'm very proud of them. Amazing.
Yeah, I have it. Yeah.
Now, again, it's such, the storyis so, so beautiful there
because what? I use the word beautiful because
it articulates where you've comefrom and where you're at the
moment and the fact that, you know, yes, you had the boohoo
(19:26):
days and as you see your life changed dramatically.
But what I have really enjoyed learning about you is that it
you haven't that defined you in a way that is deliberate,
deliberate, deliberating. It's actually, from what I'm
understanding, it's it's grown you and allowed you to take on
the world in a whole different way.
(19:46):
And you know, you speak about being proud of your daughter's
going to university, But one thing that I'm not going to
shift is about you. You know, you also use the
courage to do an MBA. And what is that like, Theo?
Was that even in the horizons orwas it hey this is my world has
changed and MBA here I come. That's right.
It's all about and everything wedo requires courage.
And that's what I've got in my keynote as well.
(20:09):
I, I'd sort of had this imaginary bucket of courage and
I dip into the bucket again today.
I can't do this, you know, So, and that's what I did time and
time again and everything you doand it's all about and
resilience, you know, but if youlook, have a look at a piece of
elastic now, elastic is described as being resilient,
(20:30):
but it's flippy, floppy. Nothing happens to it unless you
do something to that elastic andmake it work.
And that's where the courage comes in.
If you, if you take the courage,move the elastic, you'll find
the resilience And it's just, you just have to do it.
(20:51):
There's no easy way to to do it.You just have to be courageous
in your life. It takes courage to get married,
to have children, buy a house, all, everything that you do,
change the job, you know, take up paddle boarding, whatever you
do, you've got to be courageous.You've got to have a go.
And so that's what life's all about.
(21:13):
Sure. And I love, I love that because
the world that I work in, I talkabout crossroads that every
single day we come through crossroads in our life every
single day. You know, you, when the alarm
goes off, that's your first crossroad.
Do I stay in bed or do I wake up?
What do I do? Right?
That's what we do. But I love the element of
courage that you have to add, because we all know where we we
(21:33):
all know in our minds what we'd like to do, but why don't we do
it? And as you said, the first step
is courage. And that courage might be asking
for help. Yeah, You know, and well, it is,
yeah. Somebody said to me the other
day, if you found somebody in your position, what would you
do? Because we call it, we were
talking about casseroles and condolences, which is what
(21:55):
people offer. And they'd say, oh, just let me
know if you need anything. But that immediately places the
onus back on the grieving, grieving person.
And I mean, grief is something we just, nobody talks about
grief. We don't.
And that's such a shame because everybody deals with grief in
such a different way. I, I said to this, this person,
(22:16):
I would ask the person, the, the, the bereft person what they
need. Do you need me to pick up the
children? Do you need bread?
Do you, do you need me to take your car and get petrol in it?
All the practicalities of life that you have to get on, you
know, that you have to get on with and I, you know, you've got
(22:37):
to become another two parents. The same with the widow.
He has to become somebody who does all the stuff around the
house or unless he can get somebody to do it for him, which
most men seem to do. And in fact, my husband had had
him had me, me insured for enough money to if anything
happened to me, he would have enough money to employ a a
(22:59):
housekeeper and things. And yet he was three weeks away
from taking out 1/4 of $1,000,000 insurance because of
all the change over with the build it, you know, the, the
business and everything else. So he just died 3 weeks too
early. I was very cross with him for
that for a long time. I can tell you I used to, I
(23:21):
became a, a, a, a crematorium junkie.
I used to go out every day and he got no idea the things I told
him. I I yelled at him, I screamed at
him and I told him I loved him and all the rest of it.
It's interesting. That's amazing what happens in
(23:42):
emotion, right? We'd be, you know, if you told
somebody that you'd be, you'd dothat.
You would be, what are you talking about?
Until it happens, because we don't know.
We don't know. We don't know.
No, that's all right. No, you don't.
And you don't know how you're going to react until that
actually happens, you know? Yeah.
And for me, it's just, it was just, as I said, one hour at a
time, just absolutely one hour at a time.
(24:04):
And that's all I could get to, all I could do.
Yep, 'cause I still had to get the car serviced.
I still had to make sure the mortgage was paid and all that.
And I couldn't do that for a just because of our funds were
frozen. He died in the January and funds
were frozen until August. I didn't get any because the
(24:26):
need for an inquest autopsy tooka week and then you have to get
the inquest. Well, there's six weeks after
the autopsy and went on and on and on and on.
And so we lived on thin air pretty much for quite a while.
It was pretty tricky. And I'd, I'd been working every
second weekend at the local health service and I had to go
(24:48):
back to work just to put food onthe table.
And that which was interesting in itself, trying to get back
into a hospital area where you know.
Yeah, yeah. And and again, you know, it's
just it's like you said, an an event happens, but life still
carries on. Life doesn't stop.
(25:10):
Yeah, it. Does.
Yeah, it does. And you know, and the other in
the running Congo with that is the love.
When, where do you put the love?It doesn't stop just because
he's not there anymore. And we put that, you know, and
the grief is often described as love with nowhere to go.
And it doesn't. Yeah.
(25:32):
Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't dissipate
straight away either. You sort of.
I've done a lot of research intothe types of grief.
I mean, we all know about Elizabeth Kubler Ross's research
in the five stages of grief. And I can tell you I went
through all of those. But the grief's now been
categorized into things like anticipatory grief, ambiguous
(25:56):
grief, complicated, traumatic, all of those sorts of things.
And that's been quite helpful tome to understand why I was so
stuck for so long, because I wasstuck in complicated, traumatic
grief. Really.
Yeah. And.
You know, what's what's, what's interesting there, Roslyn, as I
(26:19):
had a, a conversation with one of my clients a few weeks ago
and they work in a similar spaceto you.
And I said to them, what does everyone experience in life,
whether we like it or not? And I said, everyone experiences
grief. Everyone, everyone.
You know, sometimes it might be for something minor, something
major, but we all go through theemotion of grief.
And as you said before, there's so many different kinds of
(26:40):
grief, but we don't speak about it.
We just, we just wrap it under the, you know, hey everyone,
you're going to be fine. Time, time will heal all wounds
and maybe it will, but we need to have that conversation.
So I'm really glad that you thatyou're talking about this, but
in a way that is the bucket of carriageway, you know, which is
really beautiful and. As I if I just one of the other
things that I found was quite difficult is people don't know
(27:04):
what to say to you. And so they walk around the
other side of the supermarket aisle so they can avoid you and
that feels very personal, but it's not it's just that they
don't know what to say. So very quickly you become
addicted at dealing with other people's inadequacies.
You know, how do they Oh, I knowthey're just look, I'm not dead
(27:24):
yet. So you know that, that I used to
use that when I had cancer things, but oh, I'm still alive.
He's dead, but I'm not, you know, and that sort of stuff.
But it's really interesting, really, it's a whole and then
you get the thing where the, the, the guys come around and do
all that, all the odd jobs and things.
(27:46):
All his mates would come around,do the odd jobs and things and
around the house and things. And doesn't take long before the
women start to resent that. And I, I had no idea that all of
that was happening. I just had, I had no idea that
that was how people behaved, youknow, and I stopped being
invited to things. And, you know, and the first
(28:07):
time I had some counselling about it, the council said,
well, if you were fat and ugly you wouldn't have to worry
really anyway. But it's, yeah, sorry, I've got
a bit of hate here today, No. That's all right.
That's all right. Humans are fascinating.
Yeah, so, so fascinating. And what we do and we don't do,
and also the perception and the stories people tell themselves
(28:29):
about, you know, what's a good intention becomes a whole
different story in someone else's mind.
It's interesting also that that that grief is not only about
death. Grief can be separation, a
divorce, you know, it's about loss as well.
And that the biggest, it's like to me that it was absolutely
(28:50):
such gut wrenching sadness that you couldn't do anything about.
And that just it's a massive, massive loss from everything you
used to have. You lose your future.
You never lose what you've had because you've always had that.
But you lose your future becausethere's it's never going to be
(29:11):
the same. And he's not there to share it
with you. And the children lose their
father. It's just, it's just such a
massive loss. And I think it, as I say, it's
not only does it doesn't only relate to grief, it's all the
other things that they lost in their lives.
You know, that's the financial freedom that we would have had
(29:33):
they lost friends because friends didn't know how to treat
them and that sort of stuff. So as well, you know, and it's
people that lose jobs if people be made redundant, that's a
terrible sense of loss as well. So.
Yeah, yeah. And, and it's really great how
you put that the young people think about grief in terms of
death. But as you said, grief can be
(29:54):
anything. You know, you're if you know the
fact that your car breaks down, even that could send you grief.
Oh, no, I can't get to work. I can't pick up my child.
I can't. You know, those are simple
things. We can't invalidate those
feelings because they grief, it comes.
It's just loss. Whatever loss is, you know,
we'll, we'll go through that as we said before.
(30:14):
Sorry. Sorry, sorry.
There's one of the interesting types of.
Well, they're all interesting intheir own rights, but the, the
ambiguous grief is sort of when perhaps I think it's often
described as somebody who has, say, Alzheimer's and they don't
(30:37):
know who you are anymore. They, they, and you start
grieving, you know, for somebodyor you're still looking at that
person, but they don't know who you are.
There's anticipatory grief with people who have, say, a child
with say, brain cancer or something, you know, and, or an
inoperable anything and that child won't survive.
(30:58):
So you start grieving from the point of, of diagnosis or from,
you know, that that time it's like, and a community grief
where, where for when? Remember when, when you had all
the cyclones and things in, in Auckland?
I remember because my daughter was there and the roof blew off
(31:20):
the shopping centre at Glendale and things and massive community
things where everybody feels thesame, everybody has the same
loss. They lose houses, they lose
cars, they lose, you know, access to services and that sort
of thing. So there's all, there's so much,
so many different types of griefnow.
I mean, they're always there, but they were never defined that
(31:41):
way, you know? So, yeah, and, and I think what
I'm going to do is I'm going to switch the focus because we've
got the grief. And I'm going to talk about the
same side of the coin, but the opposite emotion is, which is
where you're already speaking to, is courage.
Courage. And I'd love for you to tell us
about how you came up with a bucket of courage and your
(32:03):
concept around that is somethingthat you'd like to go and take
to the world. Well, my heart was breaking
basically. And I just and of course the
etymology of courage is cool. It comes from cool, which is in
your heart. And I thought, well, you know,
(32:26):
what can I do with my heart that's breaking?
I need something to fix it. And I don't know.
I just came up with the idea of the of the the bucket and filled
it up with courage and I'd use it every day.
That's I don't it just sort of something I invented I guess.
And and you invented it, and nowit's something you want, you
(32:47):
want to. Why do you think this is
important for the world to hear about?
Because you need it. Basically, you need it with
everything you do. And if you haven't always have
your bucket of courage there, you will be able to draw on it
when you need it and, and identifying when you need it is
(33:07):
going to be the the issue. I guess I think I can't do this
today and your bucket's there. Well, I'll just dip into my
bucket and I will, I'll do what I have to do.
Whether you like to do it or not, you have to.
There are things, as we all knowthat the things that you have to
do and it's just very handy to have your bucket close by you
(33:32):
wherever you are. Yeah, and you know, it doesn't
have to be a real 1. You could have a real bucket if
you wanted to, just to remind you.
But it's something that, as you said before, we we use it all
the time and picking on some courageous themes in your life
as well. You know, we spoke about the
NBA, you know, as you said before, you remarried, but also
(33:54):
you're a musician as well. Well, that's that part of your
world because that requires courage to be a musician.
You know, we don't think, we don't think of that, but it is a
courageous thing. Music is what?
How does that live and come intoyour?
World it's a funny story about all that I actually, I went to I
grew up in the Bush in the country and we didn't have a
(34:15):
high school in those days and and I'd been trying to learn the
piano from the time that I just could stand and play the piano
here and I had piano lessons andthey the nuns at the convent
where I was learning would say, you know, Rosalind would be good
if she could have some more lessons somewhere else in
(34:38):
Sydney. So I cut a Long story short.
I was lucky enough to be able togo to the Conservatorium of
Music and they have a high school there.
So I did my high school in at, at the Conservatorium, which was
absolutely wonderful. So I have got a classical
background, but I got into and you can see the record on the
back of the wall there. That's from one of my shows.
(34:58):
I was a musical director from Shout, the story of Johnny
O'Keefe. And I got involved in musical
theatre on the coast here by, oh, not by accident.
It was quite funny. They, they, there's a local
businessman here who rang my home and I wasn't home.
(35:19):
And Kevin said I'll get her to ring you back.
And I had my own studio teachinghere and I was teaching at the
conservatorium here and at the local grammar school.
And I used to send kids for a steadfast and all that sort of
stuff. So most people on the coast knew
me and my music teaching. And so I said to my husband, I'm
(35:45):
I'm not going to ring him. I don't want to buy a car.
Don't just don't do that. Don't.
Anyway, the gentleman rang, rangagain and I did the same thing.
And then the my husband said to me, you're being very rude, you
really should ring him back. So I rang him back and what had
happened? They they needed a musical
director for a show that a production of half a sixpence,
which they were putting on in five weeks now.
(36:10):
Yeah, Oh, wow. I had no idea what I was getting
into. No idea.
And some of the, the, the, the songs they couldn't sing in the
right keys and all that sort of stuff.
There was no orchestra prepared.And in those days you didn't
have backing tracks or anything like that.
We had, you know, 1518 piece orchestra that we did.
Anyway, that was my introduction.
I did it and we got it. We got, we had a good show.
(36:33):
It was really good. And that was a baptism of fire.
And I had left and that, that was 401984, I think so 41 years
ago. Yeah.
More than half my life I spent there.
I had a bit, I had a couple of what, 18 months or 20 months off
after Kevin died because I couldn't, I just, I kept crying.
(36:57):
I couldn't play my own piano. I've got 3 pianos here.
I couldn't play. I just kept crying while ever I
tried music. Anyway, I went went in, I got
the bucket of courage going and I I went in one evening they
were having a rehearsal and I burst into tears and they just
said, come on, we're just havinga rehearsal come and listen.
And that was it. I though I, it was just, it's
(37:20):
one of those things where a community, the, the value of a
community is really not, not understood because that was so,
so healing for me. It was really a place I went on
to do about 15 or 16 shows, 15 shows as a musical director.
(37:42):
And I've done a couple of things, two or three things on
stage and played in heaps of orchestras more than I my age.
And it's, it's just been, it's the most amazing place.
We help all sorts of people, people who feel they don't
belong, you know, they come in and enjoy the camaraderie and
(38:05):
it's just amazing you interacting with people with the
same like minds and same interests and that as long as
they leave their ego, ego at thedoor, which most of them don't
so. Oh, well, it sounds like there
was a slender moment when that happened, and it's just changed
(38:26):
the way your life has been. What you know that's one moment,
5 weeks and here you are it's very beautiful and talking about
beautiful Roslyn, you've also you've also you've also been the
volunteer of volunteer of the year.
You know this, this doesn't comelightly because people recognize
the work that you do. And what is it like for you?
(38:47):
Because we don't, I mean, I don't know about you, but I
don't go into the world to try and get recognition when you're
giving from the heart. When you were announced or told
that you were the CEO volunteer of the year, how did that make
you feel? Oh, I, it was very humbling
actually. I, I got a little thingy when I,
(39:07):
I was being nominated and, and I, you know, thought this, I
just, I just didn't think that Iwould ever be in that position.
And this was with the Cancer Council.
I've been volunteering with themfor 10 years and we, my role
with them was an advocate who goes to that for people who in
(39:32):
the community who need assistance with cancer and
whether it's A and when you get like I've had breast cancer
twice and, and when you have, itimpacts everybody, not just the
patient. And that's often, in the old
days anyway, it was less understood than it is now.
(39:53):
I mean, people like Glenn McGrath with the McGrath nurses
have done a wonderful thing because he's now branching out
into every kind of cancer, not just breast cancer.
But in the old days it was a death sentence really.
But now 92% of breast cancer patients survive more than five
(40:14):
years. Well, I've been surviving for 29
years now and I'm going to continue to do that.
But it's just. I don't know, I just, I was
really happy to give back to theCancer Council because I had
such a good experience and I, you know, such a good result.
Basically. I wouldn't say the experience
was good, never was. But I mean, nothing really
(40:37):
particularly nice about having chemo and radiation, but it's
certainly, you know, it's a good.
And my mantra with them is always make sure you have your,
and because I'm a theatrical person, I call it a screen test,
your free screening. So make sure you have your
screen test and, and be diligentabout looking after yourself.
That's the way that that works. But I, I'm very, very privileged
(41:02):
actually to, to, and I just feltso humbling.
I just wouldn't have thought that that would ever happen to
me because you don't, you don't do those things for, as you say,
for recognition. It's and I almost felt selfish
about it in a way because I get so much satisfaction from it.
And so it's giving me a whole lot of stuff just to just
(41:24):
because I'm doing that for somebody else, it's.
Yeah. Yeah, it's good.
It's it's, it's, it's, it's all that is right in in giving that
you receive and in giving without an intention, you
receive without an expectation. And you know, this is a, this is
a real life story of that's happening to you, where you were
doing stuff just because you, asyou said before, you had a
(41:45):
fantastic relationship with them.
And the end result is, you know,you're here today and I'm doing
this amazing, as you say today, amazing Mahi and his beautiful,
beautifulness. But at the, at the age of 80
right now, and I and I use it inthe most beautiful way because
you have such an amazing spark to you.
(42:06):
You keep going. Where does the drive come from
for you to go? Hey, you know, there's still
more for me to learn. I want to get out there and do
things. What's your drive?
What what? What's your why I guess?
What's my why? My why is I've been a very lucky
person. I, I've had, I mean, my parents
went to back to me so I could come and learn music down here.
(42:28):
That's just amazing, really. Some, a lot of parents wouldn't
have been able to do that, wouldnot have had the opportunity or
made the, the made the resourcesavailable to do that.
They changed their lives to do that and I was lucky.
I, I went, travelled overseas and that's where I met my
husband, my first husband and three beautiful children.
(42:52):
I, you know, almost lost a couple of them in, you know, in
utero that we, they're beautifulchildren.
They've also all done well. And my mum and dad, I looked
after them for a while after they moved to the coast and
(43:13):
they, I'm just thinking they came to live with me for a
little while because they had dementia and mum, dad had
dementia and mum got really sicktrying to look after him and
things. And my daughter, my oldest girl
was doing year 10 and I was making a dress for her, for her
U10 formal. And I thought I've got to do
this when there's nobody around.So I got up at 3:00 in the
(43:34):
morning and I'm got all the big,oh all the big dining room table
with all the fabric all lined out, all beautiful, ready to
start cutting and all the rest. Next minute Dad comes paddling
out. What are you doing girl?
I said I'm just making Shana's dress.
Oh, can I help you? I said, well how about you make
a cup of coffee anyway, so that he made a cup of cup of tea
(43:56):
actually, and I thought that'll keep him busy for 4550 minutes
while I can get this cut out. Anyway, he walked over after
he'd made the cup of tea and he put it right down the middle of
the fabric. Oh golly.
Anyway, I had enough to cut another panel, which was really
good. But now they, they, they both
passed away 14 months after Kevin actually.
(44:18):
And they died 5 weeks apart, which was very difficult.
So, and then at the end of that year, I had a girlfriend who
committed suicide and, and, and my sister's partner passed away
as well. So I had five significant deaths
in sort of 18 months. And I mean to say, I was on
first name terms with the Funeral Home.
(44:41):
I rang and they'd say, oh, now who is it this time sort of
thing. So that, you know, they were
wonderful and was good. So, you know, I'm lucky that
I've been able to, you know, fight my way to get through all
of that. And I was lucky that I was able
to do an MBA because in those days, I, I finished that while I
(45:01):
was having my chemo. And in those days, they didn't
take very kindly to people working at home.
It was very difficult. And, and anyway, I convinced
them that I could still be productive even if it was, you
know, 9:00 at night or whatever,or whenever I wasn't feeling
unwell from the chemo. So, and I, I achieved that,
(45:21):
which was really good. So, and then lucky to be married
to such a lovely man. Now we've been married for 28
years. I was eight years on my own and
he's, he's a lovely man and the he didn't have any children of
his own and my girls love him topieces, which is really good.
And he's now a poppy. He didn't have any children of
(45:43):
his own and he's a lovely poppy to the kids.
So it's really, really, really nice.
And that's, that's pretty special for me to be able to,
you know, that that's, I think it's lovely that and it's, yeah,
very lucky. Yeah, it's, you know, you're the
why comes across so, so clearly.And what I love about across
(46:05):
then is there are so many incidents, incidents in your
life where you could have just given up or just change, change
the story, change the narrative.And I'm sure you know, this in
this podcast, we don't go into the emotions that you would have
gone to and there would have been times when you were, as you
said before, like, Oh no, but they just break it up into an
hour by hour and where you are today.
(46:25):
And that why, which comes through so strongly.
And one thing that I've noticed in the whole conversation we've
had is the pride that you have for your family, you know, that
just comes through so, so clearly, which is really
beautiful. So you when you speak about
that, why it's really, really beautiful for me to see and for
our listeners to hear as well. And you know, if you ever, if
you're listening, going, hey, you know, life sucks and life
(46:47):
does suck. Life is a roller coaster until
it is. It's ups and downs.
But hey, maybe you could find your own boohoo, picture your
boohoo, quote your boohoo, and just embrace that for a while
and go ahead. This is this is OK.
It is, I mean, I, you know, I, I, I, I just think I'm just such
a lucky person. I mean, I was awarded an Order
(47:10):
of Australia for all the stuff that I've done in the community.
And you know, that's just prettyspecial really that and that,
that in itself was a really interesting experience.
I, you know, you go down to Government House and feel pretty
special and all the rest of it. And then you get all the people
(47:30):
who say, oh, well, if she got one, they're not worth much, you
know, all the, all the knockers and things.
And you know, life's, life's really very interesting.
And I think if you, I, I, I did a gig for the Cancer Council the
other day. I do a lot of, you know, for
their speaking for Australia's because morning teas.
(47:50):
Do you have morning teas like the Cancer Council in New
Zealand? I don't.
Know I'm I'm sure the other day yeah.
I think you do, yeah, yes. And they go and raise funds and
all that sort of stuff. And, and as I'm a guest speaker
for them, and it's interesting because this this one that I did
the other day, the girl said to me I was getting so been so
(48:12):
miserable. She said there's so much, you
know, rubbish and stuff going onin the world and everything's
negative and it's really awful. And she said organising this and
doing this morning tea has showed her how much good and
warmth and love there is in the world.
Because so many people had me donate their time and their and
(48:37):
whatever they give so that people to raise money for Cancer
Council. So and and I just thought that's
such a lovely story, isn't it? You know, with everything that's
being so negative at the moment and you get somebody who gives a
real aha moment about how lovelypeople are down, you know, deep
down. So it's really, it's quite good
(48:57):
I think. Yeah, and, and what are what
are, you know, one of the, the things I've learned over over
time is every single one of us is inherently good.
You know, we don't wake up in the morning to make someone have
a bad day. We don't none of us do that
there. But life sometimes throws in
situations where it ends up happening.
But when you go to bed and wake up in the morning as you don't
go, I'm going to make Rosa's life terrible today.
(49:19):
No one does that there. So it's really beautiful.
People acknowledge that there, as you said, in the world where
if we look at the noise in the media, we think the world is the
world is crumbling in certain places.
But at the individual level, in your own sphere, it's very, very
different. And you know, it's again, it's,
it's a big acknowledgement to you, Rosalind, that, you know,
(49:39):
you were awarded the award of Australia.
You've got the sea of volunteer,you've got all these really
amazing accolades. But if we take all that away, to
me, I just see someone that's that is that is here because
they want to share with the world that hey, courage comes in
all forms and we all, we can allput our hands into the bucket
(50:01):
and use the courage. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
And make it a pretty large bucket because there's times
when you'll need a lot of it. Yeah, beautiful.
Rosen, Rosen, we've been speaking for almost an hour and
time has just flown by itself so, so quick, which is amazing.
And you know, there's so much inyour life that we haven't
touched, but I think what you shared today is is beautiful.
(50:24):
But before I end the, the episode today we have a, we have
a tradition and a podcast, whichis called a podcast called Basks
of Knowledge. And we invite our guests to
share a piece of knowledge to put into our basket.
You've shared so much today, butis there any piece of knowledge
you'd like myself or our guests to to put into our into our
basket in any part of your life?Just use your courage.
(50:49):
Just give design. Your own bucket can be large,
small, square, whatever you want.
However you you feel. Design yourself a bucket, fill
it up with courage, and use it every day, every time you need
it, because it's always there and courage comes from the
heart. I love that.
So Yep, go and design your bucket, whatever shape, whatever
(51:11):
size, and use it. And I guess Rosen, it's it's
limitless, right? The courage doesn't stop the
bucket. The bucket is always full.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep, beautiful. Rosen.
Rosen. Any last things before I say
goodbye to you this afternoon? Any that last words for listers
of myself? No, thank you for having me as a
(51:33):
as a guest. It's an honour to actually be
able to hear to and to speak with you today.
I think if anybody hears this and gets something out of it,
then we've achieved a lot today.I think that's that's very good.
And I just keep doing what you're doing because I think
it's wonderful. Thank you.
(51:53):
Amazing, Roslyn. And if people want to get hold
of you, how, how, how could theydo that?
You know, they've heard the story go hi Roslyn, you're
amazing. How can we get hold of you?
You can find me at roslynenglishspeaker@gmail.com
and that that will find me. For the moment, I'm just
midstream with setting up my website
andthingssobutroslynenglishspeaker@gmail.com.Awesome.
(52:19):
So if you're out there and you go, I need someone inspirational
at one of my talks, there we go right there.
Roslyn, englishspeaker@gmail.comRoslyn, it's been a been a real
pleasure and a privilege having you on today.
And to me, it's quite a crazy full circle moment for you, for
me. Listen to 4th of July, 10 years
ago, 4th of July. You know, we're sharing your tip
(52:39):
of tip of your story today, which is really beautiful.
I can't, I can't wait to see howI'm going to grow by just being
in a proximity, even though it'sonline.
And today just hearing your story reminds me of my own male
factor. Hey, Courage is available.
I'm just going to dip into it inthose moments when I think I
don't have any courage. It's.
(53:00):
Free. It's free.
It's free. You don't have to.
You don't have to pay anybody for that.
Yeah. Thank you, Ross.
And so much Alice is out there. Thank you so much for listening
in. Hopefully you have picked up
something today. If you haven't picked up
something, go back and listen again because I'm sure you
weren't listening. This has been a really
inspirational, aspirational and really positive conversation.
(53:20):
So next time, everybody, don't forget to find a reason to
smile. Don't forget to find your bucket
of courage. And most important of all, don't
forget to put something into your boss of knowledge.
Till next time, talk you to. Bye everybody.
Peace. Thank you for listening to
(53:40):
Bossets of Knowledge. Yeah, we hope that you found
something useful to put into your boss of knowledge.
And as we said before, remember to put something little into
your boss of knowledge every week.
And as always, feel free to like, comment and share this
podcast. Thanks, everybody.
Bye.
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