Speaker 1: I lay on that floor in my walk in wardrobe
Speaker 1: and I cried and I cried, and then I just thought,
Speaker 1: no one's coming.
Speaker 2: No one's going to come and.
Speaker 1: Sweep you up and drive you off, Like get up, girl,
Speaker 1: get your big girl pants on, and start moving, because
Speaker 1: those kids need you, and you need to be okay.
Speaker 2: You need to believe you're okay.
Speaker 3: Robin Bailey is one of those voices you feel like,
Speaker 3: you know if you've ever listened to her on the radio,
Speaker 3: and you might not even realize that you have, you'll
Speaker 3: know what I mean. She's warm, she's funny, she's incredibly open.
Speaker 3: She has this way of making people feel like they're
Speaker 3: not alone. And now she's written a memoir, Flamingo's Aren't
Speaker 3: Born Pink, which tells the story of her life. It's
Speaker 3: a life that's been shaped by some extraordinary highs and
Speaker 3: some very very very deep losses. Robin lost her father
Speaker 3: when she was a child. Years later, her first husband
Speaker 3: took his own life, and then after finding love again,
Speaker 3: she lost her second husband to cancer. So I wanted
Speaker 3: to sit down with Robin and really understand how she's
Speaker 3: lived through all of that, how she's raised her boys
Speaker 3: through it. And how she's found her way back to joy,
Speaker 3: because this conversation isn't just about grief. It's about resilience
Speaker 3: and what it takes to keep going through repeated life
Speaker 3: altering loss and who you become on the other side
Speaker 3: of it. This is Robin Bailey. Robin Bailey legend, living legend.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to.
Speaker 2: Say that only one that says that my love WI
Speaker 2: lave me.
Speaker 3: To no filter.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I know you'll have no problem with the no filter
Speaker 3: part of no filter no because I have just read
Speaker 3: your extraordinary book, Oh my goodness, extraordinary memoir, Flamingo's Aren't
Speaker 3: Born Pink, my family's story of healing, hope and living
Speaker 3: life in color, and you just missed actually me gassing
Speaker 3: you up to Bree, our producer, because I was saying
Speaker 3: I was going to do as I always do if
Speaker 3: someone's written a book. I always read the book, but
Speaker 3: sometimes you read and sometimes you like reading for context
Speaker 3: or whatever. I read, read, read this book, and this
Speaker 3: morning when I finished it, I was howling, howling.
Speaker 1: Kay, You're only the third person outside of the process
Speaker 1: who has actually given me honest feedback apart from my mind.
Speaker 2: But my mum loves it. And loves me and loves
Speaker 2: my children. So thank you. That's just amazing.
Speaker 3: It's so frank as in points to be alarming, like
Speaker 3: it really is, but it also encompasses really eloquently your
Speaker 3: life journey and what it has entailed and what it
Speaker 3: is that you've experienced that is I think unique to you,
Speaker 3: the grief that you have known and a word that's
Speaker 3: used a lot resilience, but that we sense the joy
Speaker 3: of you and what you did for your three boys.
Speaker 2: Aren't they the best? Though? I'm so proud that they
Speaker 2: finished the book.
Speaker 1: They each had their own say, Like That's the thing
Speaker 1: I just loved the most because they agreed to do
Speaker 1: it and I didn't. There was no pushing for me.
Speaker 1: This was a genuine, honest they said, no, Mum, we
Speaker 1: want to have our say. And that's what I love
Speaker 1: the most about it, I think because it is our
Speaker 1: story over the last ten years.
Speaker 3: And it's a huge story and all of you, I
Speaker 3: have to say, a pink flamingo. But what were you
Speaker 3: when you were born? What color were you?
Speaker 1: Wow? I think I was like a little white. Have
Speaker 1: you seen the cute little videos on YouTube? I watch
Speaker 1: a lot of animal videos and there's little flamingos with
Speaker 1: really long legs, like a splattering.
Speaker 2: Around in a pond.
Speaker 1: I was very sporty as a young kid, and I
Speaker 1: think I was a bit awkward. I'm dyslexic, so I
Speaker 1: found the world a little bit of a foreign place,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do very well in school. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I do associate with a baby flamingo that's
Speaker 1: like looks at its pink potential, but isn't quite there yet.
Speaker 3: And yet you obviously potential is an interesting word because
Speaker 3: you've gone on to have an extraordinary career. Now people
Speaker 3: outside of Brisbane, and I'm from Brisbane might not know you.
Speaker 3: There literally would be no one in Brisbane that doesn't
Speaker 3: know you because you've had You've been in radio there
Speaker 3: for decades and you've had extraordinary success in radio. And
Speaker 3: also you've been very open about sharing with your listeners
Speaker 3: the pain and tribulations that have befallen you.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I guess that's true.
Speaker 3: What do you think equipped you to be a communicator?
Speaker 3: Like you say you're dyslexic, but you're so articulate. Your
Speaker 3: written word is also articulate, and you're an expert communicator.
Speaker 2: Well, I came from a family of women.
Speaker 1: So my father died of a heart attack when I
Speaker 1: was eleven, and I was fifth generation single mom, And
Speaker 1: in all of the situations, it was never the choice
Speaker 1: of my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, and you know,
Speaker 1: my grandmother was the eldest of two daughters, my mother
Speaker 1: was the eldest of two daughters. My sister is the
Speaker 1: eldest of two daughters. And there was only women in
Speaker 1: my life. Literally, I mean, no grandfather, no brother's, nothing.
Speaker 1: So I think women have an innate sense of communication.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother and my mother are the two most
Speaker 1: influential women of my life.
Speaker 2: And I you know, my.
Speaker 1: Mom's a very practical black and white person, so I
Speaker 1: think I am. My sister's quite similar to my mom.
Speaker 1: So I think I felt like that was my place
Speaker 1: in the family that and you know, when you go
Speaker 1: through a profound grief, like Dad put us to bed
Speaker 1: that night, and then I was woken by Mom saying
Speaker 1: that he died. That you know, that shock of at
Speaker 1: and the being eleven and not having hit puberty, so
Speaker 1: grief in childhood, I think I just found a comfort
Speaker 1: in being emotional and communicating emotionally and I think growing
Speaker 1: up with my mum and my sister being this incredibly
Speaker 1: and my grandmother these incredibly strong, dominant women, I felt
Speaker 1: like I could feel my way through life.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that's how I learned to live.
Speaker 1: And because schooling was really tough for me, I just went, well,
Speaker 1: if I can sense someone, and if I can read
Speaker 1: a person, then that's going to give me a greater understanding,
Speaker 1: where the other things that I do aren't as easy.
Speaker 3: Like developing another sceense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: And I think radio really provided that for me too,
Speaker 1: because it's interesting. You don't see the people that you
Speaker 1: broadcast to, but you can feel them.
Speaker 2: I can feel them.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a when you actually just have someone
Speaker 1: in your ears. I think there's an essence to them
Speaker 1: that I often can pick up, particularly if it's a
Speaker 1: deeper conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's how I've learned to live life.
Speaker 3: When you say you found school difficult, where was school?
Speaker 3: Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: I went to Abbotsford Primary School. I lived in the
Speaker 1: inner West of Sydney. We grew up at a time
Speaker 1: where it was not trendy. Let me tell you all
Speaker 1: the fruit and fish and chip shop owners of five
Speaker 1: Dot bought in abbots Fit and the Parramatta River stunk.
Speaker 1: We had the quarantine station just around the corner.
Speaker 2: It was not you know, it was and it was
Speaker 2: a great place to grow up.
Speaker 1: I grew up on a caulder sac like there was
Speaker 1: a park down the bottom and then the river. So
Speaker 1: I went to Abbotsford Primary School and then I went
Speaker 1: to Concord High.
Speaker 2: I was very.
Speaker 1: Lucky that my mum was in a big a world
Speaker 1: traveler and a really curious person, and so in the
Speaker 1: year ten I went and became an exchange student in
Speaker 1: America for twelve or for nine months, and then I
Speaker 1: came back, and then I went overseas for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, but I went in after I came back
Speaker 1: from America, I went to Glennie In which was a
Speaker 1: Rudolph Steiner school in middle in Sydney. So I went
Speaker 1: from a very kind of inner West to Concord High
Speaker 1: to Steiner and then I got into UNI at A
Speaker 1: and U to study journalism. But the prospect of trying
Speaker 1: to do university and study was just too big for.
Speaker 3: Me because of the reading and the writing.
Speaker 1: Just the reading and the comprehension it took. It scared
Speaker 1: me and when I because I'm old. When I was
Speaker 1: going through you could have a choice between a cadet
Speaker 1: chip and.
Speaker 2: UNI degree. So I chose a cadetship and practical. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I went out to Burke, to two W E B.
Speaker 1: Burke in far western New South Wales, and it was
Speaker 1: a great place to start because even though it had
Speaker 1: the biggest broadcasting area went into Queensland, New South Wales
Speaker 1: and South Australia, there were three thousand people in that
Speaker 1: town and if you said the wrong thing, they rise.
Speaker 3: Did you ever the.
Speaker 1: Job I hate, like talking about cotton farming and all
Speaker 1: the water issues around?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah things a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: But you know, it taught me that words have consequence
Speaker 1: and radio stories have people listening, and that they care,
Speaker 1: and that if you want to say something, you better
Speaker 1: be able to back it up and to be really respectful,
Speaker 1: be really respectful of people.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like a drunk gun on a Friday coming
Speaker 2: into the pub seeking you out is not happening. What
Speaker 2: you said about his water intake?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're going to speak some truths, right And then
Speaker 4: so you found yourself in Brisbane with it like a
Speaker 4: very unusual after a bit of you know, ping ponging
Speaker 4: around with a very unusual package of talents, so behind
Speaker 4: the microphone and in producing and with a new scenes,
Speaker 4: and then you found yourself in front of the mic
Speaker 4: and that proved to be magic.
Speaker 2: That's exactly true.
Speaker 1: And you've got to understand that when I started, you know,
Speaker 1: there weren't women on air a lot.
Speaker 2: There weren't a lot of women on air. There weren't
Speaker 2: very many of us at all.
Speaker 3: So what era? So is this nineties nineties?
Speaker 2: Like I was.
Speaker 1: I was absolutely the laughing track for Jamie Dunn, God.
Speaker 2: Bless his soul.
Speaker 3: I grow, yeah, I grow.
Speaker 1: Like part of my job was to laugh at his jokes.
Speaker 1: And my friends used to always, you know, give me
Speaker 1: a nudge every now and then, going oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: heard your fake laugh ten times in your laugh you know.
Speaker 3: Was I think there was even a comedy sketch about
Speaker 3: laughing girl in radio right.
Speaker 2: That was the laughing girl in Radio right.
Speaker 1: And you know it'd come off the back of being
Speaker 1: a barrel girl on Hey hey, Like for my feminist
Speaker 1: mother and grandmother, that must have been hard to swallow.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I think that was the.
Speaker 1: Way I could see in and I was always of
Speaker 1: the belief you've got to be in it to change it.
Speaker 2: And there's you know, my sister is much more.
Speaker 1: My sister Pip is this extraordinary activist, but she, you know,
Speaker 1: agitates from the outside, whereas I'm much more, you know,
Speaker 1: get in there, make them, make them like you make them,
Speaker 1: you know, just be that a squeaky wheel. And that's
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how to do anything else,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing it for thirty seven years.
Speaker 3: It's funny though, but because you you obviously loved it
Speaker 3: and you were drawn to it, and mostly what you
Speaker 3: you love and you're drawn to, you don't sit there
Speaker 3: going I want to get in and change this thing.
Speaker 3: I love when I'm drawn too. So what was it
Speaker 3: that you loved even before you became aware that it
Speaker 3: needed some tweaking to accommodate women and the future.
Speaker 1: I think I always wanted to be a meetia. I
Speaker 1: used to laugh that I wanted to be the next
Speaker 1: youn event on a you know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: on a current affair.
Speaker 2: But I thought that radio was all about storytelling.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I saw from
Speaker 1: my mother and my grandmother, who were both aucas that
Speaker 1: storytelling was such an amazing thing within our society and
Speaker 1: culture and that, and I just looked at radio and thought,
Speaker 1: there are so many opportunities here, and one of which
Speaker 1: is there aren't any women telling.
Speaker 2: A lot of stories. And particularly in the commercial business.
Speaker 1: You got to you got to separate ABC to commercial
Speaker 1: because they're very different beasts. Really Okay, well, on the
Speaker 1: outside they have been different. I haven't worked for the ABC,
Speaker 1: but I see that they have more quotas for women
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And also I think highly prescriptive now, probably more so
Speaker 3: than ever. I think there's probably very little freedom for
Speaker 3: a broadcaster. Whereas you stepped into a space and you
Speaker 3: claimed your freedom. So when you were broadcasting, was there
Speaker 3: when you first started behind the mic? Was there a
Speaker 3: moment that you can remember where you told a story
Speaker 3: or you shared something that was slightly unusual, that actually
Speaker 3: where the world rose to meet you and you went, oh,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 1: And you know, I cannot I cannot underestimate or you know,
Speaker 1: downplay the impact that Jamie Dunn and An Skippon had
Speaker 1: on my I spent ten years with them. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the great things about kind of being considered
Speaker 1: the laugh track is that you can listen and learn,
Speaker 1: and I did that, and what I think I learned
Speaker 1: from Jamie was that, you know, he could take one
Speaker 1: simple idea and craft this incredible story and he could
Speaker 1: take you on this journey of highs and lows and
Speaker 1: always deliver something that you weren't expecting. And so I
Speaker 1: started to push to do I mean, it sounds awful now,
Speaker 1: but I started to push to do the things that
Speaker 1: were traditionally female, like I would do an interview with
Speaker 1: a fashion person or about clothes, and then being allowed
Speaker 1: to craft that into something that I could then have
Speaker 1: control over the narrative of it and control over what
Speaker 1: people took away from it. And I think what I
Speaker 1: realized is that, certainly in that early nineties period where
Speaker 1: there was a lot of comedy and the commit on
Speaker 1: air was a really big thing, there wasn't emotional content.
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, people those that hate me,
Speaker 1: and there are, you know, I'm either loved or hated
Speaker 1: in radio.
Speaker 2: And I'm fine with both of them.
Speaker 3: That's actually every woman in every public facing woman.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: But for those that criticize me, it's that I'm too emotional, right,
Speaker 1: because of course you can't actually be great at something
Speaker 1: without someone tearing you down. But I learned really early
Speaker 1: on that because my father had died so young, and
Speaker 1: that I'd been forced into very deep emotional conversations at
Speaker 1: such a young age, I wasn't frightened of them, right,
Speaker 1: But you weren't hearing them, you weren't experiencing what people
Speaker 1: were going through. And I know with the B one
Speaker 1: I five Morning Crew we had we did a charity
Speaker 1: of every year raising money for the Royal Children's Hospital,
Speaker 1: and Agro was so great at making kids laugh. But
Speaker 1: I also learned that if I then went and talked
Speaker 1: to them and mums or dads, I would then understand
Speaker 1: what was going on behind the scene, and.
Speaker 3: There was another then dimension to the exchange.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't all terrible.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the other thing I think I've learned
Speaker 1: very early on that's also quite important. And I hope
Speaker 1: this comes through in the book that I don't ever
Speaker 1: want people to read this and want to walk away
Speaker 1: and like throw it into cornugo. That's just so sad
Speaker 1: and depressing. Every story must be lined with hope. If
Speaker 1: we don't have hope as human beings, regardless of what
Speaker 1: situation we're in, particularly in this global crisis that we're
Speaker 1: in now, then you kind of want to give up.
Speaker 1: And having, you know, having a husband who suicided and
Speaker 1: knowing what hopelessness actually can look like. It's like, I
Speaker 1: want every story for people to walk away feeling like
Speaker 1: a there was an impact, like they felt something, but
Speaker 1: b they kind of saw that there was a positive
Speaker 1: out of all of it, because there is.
Speaker 3: So when you that is very striking in fact, and
Speaker 3: that does come through in the book that you have.
Speaker 3: You have. I think the you've got the energizer Bunny,
Speaker 3: as as your emotional default setting, which is that you
Speaker 3: feel the shock, but then you get up. You get up,
Speaker 3: and you not only get up, but you rise.
Speaker 1: I think I remember very clearly after Tony died and
Speaker 1: I was just so overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't.
Speaker 1: I looked at these young boys nine twelve and fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I was the breadwinner in
Speaker 1: the family, but Tony was the primary caregiver. He had
Speaker 1: told me many times that I didn't get the boys
Speaker 1: as much as him, because you know, he was their
Speaker 1: dad and they were boys and I only came from
Speaker 1: a family, but you know, blah blah blah. And I
Speaker 1: remember just thinking, I lay on that floor in my
Speaker 1: walk in wardrobe and I cried and I cried, and
Speaker 1: then I just thought, no one's coming, No one's going
Speaker 1: to come and sweep you up and drive you off, Like,
Speaker 1: get up, girl, get your big girl pants on, and
Speaker 1: start moving, because those kids need you, and you need
Speaker 1: to be okay. You need to believe you're okay. And
Speaker 1: so I think that was a really pivotal moment, really
Speaker 1: early on. I just was like, yeah, I mean I cry,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, and I do still to this day,
Speaker 1: have moments or I just gough, but then they pass,
Speaker 1: you feel them, you let them kind of wash through you,
Speaker 1: and then you go, yeah, I'm okay, I'm good.
Speaker 3: So to contextualize what you're talking about, this was your husband,
Speaker 3: your first husband, Tony, and you'd been together, was fin
Speaker 3: your eldest fourteen at the time, Yes, yeah, and you
Speaker 3: had the marriage had run its course or you had
Speaker 3: realized for you that you could no longer stay in
Speaker 3: the marriage. Yep, And both of you were very outgoing
Speaker 3: and community minded people like I love the stories in
Speaker 3: the book. You paint a really beautiful picture of who
Speaker 3: Tony was, a very engaged like I loved the he
Speaker 3: I love the garbage can drinks. Yeah, the WILLI bin
Speaker 3: bar when the bins are out for collection. It started
Speaker 3: with him in a mate having beers and then the
Speaker 3: whole sort of streak can.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it if anyone wants to start a
Speaker 1: great idea, unless, of course, your rubbish collection is at.
Speaker 3: You know, four am and he was struggling with you
Speaker 3: needing to leave the marriage. M definitely, as is often
Speaker 3: the case, but this was so unexpected that he would
Speaker 3: take his own life, that he would do it in
Speaker 3: the family home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look, I think, I you know, I've spoken.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of therapy, as have my kids.
Speaker 1: But it's it's usually not the people you're expecting, you know,
Speaker 1: it's often not always but to do to go through
Speaker 1: with it, I mean, as I've spent nearly eleven going
Speaker 1: on to twelve years coming to terms with that choice,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do, I do see that it takes
Speaker 1: a huge amount I always say courage, but a huge
Speaker 1: amount of balls to actually go through with it, like, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a shock a lot.
Speaker 2: And I don't think anyone thought he would he did.
Speaker 1: You know, he had made attempts and by that I
Speaker 1: say he'd done quite public things, so he'd he'd had
Speaker 1: some overdose of pills that had made him fall asleep,
Speaker 1: but he went and did it in a public park
Speaker 1: and then he you know, things like that, which you
Speaker 1: know now I kind of look back on it. At
Speaker 1: the time he said, oh, he'd accidentally taken medication, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a pretty astute person and I did not see
Speaker 1: that coming, and I.
Speaker 3: Or did anybody else. And he had a lot of friends,
Speaker 3: a lot of colleagues, very active in the boys sporting worlds,
Speaker 3: like nobody saw it.
Speaker 1: He had a group of men around him because he
Speaker 1: was really struggling with our separation, and they were like
Speaker 1: his gang of five, and they would check in on
Speaker 1: him and make sure that, you know, just to kind
Speaker 1: of have beers and touch point and none of them,
Speaker 1: none of them sort of this coming.
Speaker 3: After the break, Robin shares the moment she had to
Speaker 3: tell her three boys their father had died and then
Speaker 3: you were placed because of his suicide in the situation
Speaker 3: where you had to the boys had to come home
Speaker 3: from school. You had to talk your boys through what
Speaker 3: you had to tell them what had happened. And it's
Speaker 3: interesting you talk about how I think it was Chines's
Speaker 3: dad that was like, don't tell don't tell them what,
Speaker 3: don't tell them what happened? Say it was a heart attack.
Speaker 3: What was it in that moment, through the fog of everything,
Speaker 3: that unimaginable, that made you know that the truth was
Speaker 3: what you had to speak to your sons.
Speaker 2: Well, there was enough of me to go.
Speaker 1: That doesn't feel right instinctively, But then I rang his
Speaker 1: counselor because he had been very engaged with counseling. We'd
Speaker 1: been together, he'd been separately, I'd been separately, and that
Speaker 1: pool Man, like I do remember that phone call of
Speaker 1: just going I'm really sorry, and thank goodness he picked up.
Speaker 1: I just said, I'm sorry to tell you this toiny
Speaker 1: has taken his own life. My children are coming home.
Speaker 1: I need to know what to do. Tell me what
Speaker 1: to do, and he said he said some really profound
Speaker 1: words that changed my parenting from that moment on.
Speaker 2: He said, be age appropriate, but be honest. And in
Speaker 2: that moment I went Okay, I have to.
Speaker 1: I have to tell them what was going on, but
Speaker 1: you know, age appropriate for a nine year old versus
Speaker 1: age appropriate for fourteen. I didn't want to tell them separately,
Speaker 1: and I had to do it in a way that
Speaker 1: I felt was going to be okay for them, also
Speaker 1: knowing what it felt like for my mum to wake
Speaker 1: me early one morning to tell me my father had died,
Speaker 1: so I yeah, I just thought, okay. And you know
Speaker 1: what is really interesting, and I do say this to
Speaker 1: anyone with parenting children through trauma.
Speaker 2: That decision changed how my son saw me.
Speaker 1: And it was the mantra that I used as subsequently
Speaker 1: subsequent things happened, and particularly things that desperately disappointed them,
Speaker 1: is they knew I would be honest. And I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how significant that is as a parent for
Speaker 1: children who are by birthright going to distrust everything. At
Speaker 1: age fourteen sixteen, they knew their mum would tell them
Speaker 1: the truth. And I think I'm really grateful for that moment. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I am of just sitting them down and saying, quite simply,
Speaker 1: dad's diet. He has taken his own life. He's killed
Speaker 1: himself in the Mustang.
Speaker 3: Who reacted first, can you remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they reacted very differently. My nine year old
Speaker 1: Piper was just kind of confused. My eldest son was
Speaker 1: just bewildered in and I had feared my eldest and
Speaker 1: I'd also been told that to get people around that
Speaker 1: they trusted, so I called in their godparents. So he
Speaker 1: looked at his godfather Dash, who was also one of
Speaker 1: Tony's five Men, like this is a joke.
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: Dash?
Speaker 2: Sort this out? Like what is going on?
Speaker 1: And my middle son, Lou was really angry, like just
Speaker 1: like what are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous, And
Speaker 1: so he probably was the most vocal and then it
Speaker 1: just sort of the air went out of the room
Speaker 1: and it just yeah, like it took some time to process,
Speaker 1: and by time I probably made thirty seconds or so.
Speaker 1: And then they just sat there, not really knowing what
Speaker 1: to do, and I said, you can stay here with me,
Speaker 1: or you know, Dash is here, Joe and Mars Lewin's
Speaker 1: godparents are here, and Kylie, Piper's god mother was there,
Speaker 1: and I think Joe came and got Lou because he
Speaker 1: was like fighting, like just like not fighting physically, but
Speaker 1: just you know, agitated and Joe's this great Sicilian who
Speaker 1: gets it, like just gets gets boys, gets Lewin, and
Speaker 1: he just kind of took him to one side and
Speaker 1: just made him feel masculine.
Speaker 2: In that moment, I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: It sets you on an extraordinary path. Obviously an uncharted path,
Speaker 3: but mostly And when I was reading the book, I
Speaker 3: was reminded oddly of Lockdown, because I was thinking, most
Speaker 3: children grow up with their parents editing themselves, and we
Speaker 3: do that, you know consciously, or life plays a part
Speaker 3: because of logistics and sports and obligations and busyness and work.
Speaker 3: So your kids get an edited version of you in Lockdown,
Speaker 3: my kid's got an unedited version of me. And there
Speaker 3: was something in it that was almost a relief for you.
Speaker 3: It seems that you presented your sons that you didn't
Speaker 3: have the energy to edit, even though you're always conscious
Speaker 3: of how you needed to navigate things for them. How
Speaker 3: did it feel for you to present yourself to your sons,
Speaker 3: whose life had changed so instantly as your unfiltered self.
Speaker 2: I think I went back to that original point, beage appropriate,
Speaker 2: but be honest, I didn't know how to do it,
Speaker 2: like I didn't like and Tiny was the keeper of
Speaker 2: all of our paperwork.
Speaker 1: We were in massive debt. I did change afterwards, which
Speaker 1: I didn't know. There are a lot of like line
Speaker 1: sighting reveals and I just didn't. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I could have put a front up. And you know
Speaker 1: the thing, and I do get whenever I do public speaking,
Speaker 1: and I do get asked a lot about parenting, and
Speaker 1: I think it's so relevant for this current generation of
Speaker 1: you know parents. Like coming through in our age is
Speaker 1: we don't trust our children to see the world as
Speaker 1: it is and we should. Like what I learned from
Speaker 1: my kids is that there's a difference between honesty and burdening.
Speaker 1: There's a difference between giving your children the responsibility to
Speaker 1: make you happy or hold onto your emotional x you
Speaker 1: know experiences. As a parent, that was still my job.
Speaker 1: My job was still to monitor them, to help them
Speaker 1: through this grief, to prioritize their emotional experience through this
Speaker 1: without putting my crap onto them.
Speaker 2: However, that doesn't mean that I'm not telling them.
Speaker 1: I'm not going through crap like it's okay to say
Speaker 1: one and this is what I did. I'm not having
Speaker 1: a great day. I don't know if I can cook tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, there's nothing wrong. I'm just overwhelmed and I'm tired.
Speaker 1: So rather than go I'm going to shove this down,
Speaker 1: I'm going to shove this down and then I'm just
Speaker 1: going to explode and everyone's going to get really confused
Speaker 1: as to what happened, because I think they were also
Speaker 1: looking to me a lot to see how to behave
Speaker 1: because they would leave the house and go into a
Speaker 1: school environment. And I remember this as an eleven year
Speaker 1: old whose father had just died on the Thursday of
Speaker 1: school in January, which is when dad died, and I
Speaker 1: had to go into a new year as a school prefect,
Speaker 1: the oldest in the school, and I did not want
Speaker 1: one single person to feel sorry for me. I didn't
Speaker 1: want anyone to make allowances for what had happened. So
Speaker 1: I knew that's how they were feeling. That they didn't
Speaker 1: want it to be something that made them different, because
Speaker 1: which kid does. No one wants to be highlighted for
Speaker 1: something that no one else understands. So it was my
Speaker 1: job to make them feel safe in their emotional experiences
Speaker 1: so that they could go out and face the world
Speaker 1: however they needed to. But when they came home, they
Speaker 1: could also have their and they expressed it very differently,
Speaker 1: all three of them, and still are very different in
Speaker 1: how they express themselves. And when you read their chapters
Speaker 1: you can see how different they are.
Speaker 3: They are as you've described them in the book, you know,
Speaker 3: the eldest, the wilding, raging against the machine, middle child,
Speaker 3: the sweet youngest. Yeah, but what they also had to
Speaker 3: contend with was that their mother lived in the public eye,
Speaker 3: and that your work involved sharing yourself.
Speaker 1: And you know, if there's anything that I'm not a
Speaker 1: big believer in regrets, but I think if there's anything
Speaker 1: I could have done differently, it might have been that.
Speaker 1: But then every time I go into that for myself,
Speaker 1: I think, how would I have done it? You know,
Speaker 1: Like I was on radio for I don't know what
Speaker 1: twenty years before this happened, even you know, a bit more,
Speaker 1: and so I had I was who I was. And
Speaker 1: it was interesting because I was asked whether this was
Speaker 1: something that I was going to talk about, and I
Speaker 1: remember saying to our bosses, I'm sorry, I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to live my life.
Speaker 2: I don't know how else to, you.
Speaker 1: Know, And so I dealt with it in our like
Speaker 1: ninety seventy three crew Way and Ruth, our executive producer,
Speaker 1: is still one of my best friends, so she could
Speaker 1: really help me navigate this.
Speaker 3: When they asked what you were intending to do? Were
Speaker 3: they asking that because they were scared of what you
Speaker 3: were going to do or was it a top a question.
Speaker 2: No, I think there was probably a bit of fear.
Speaker 3: Because most Breakfast shows are upbeat.
Speaker 1: And if you you know, you can still see it
Speaker 1: on YouTube. There was there was a day that I
Speaker 1: came back, which was at the five week, and then
Speaker 1: there was twelve months on and that first day back,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I don't want to be defined
Speaker 1: by this, even though it obviously obviously has, but I
Speaker 1: don't want it to be the you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: to come to work and have some fun.
Speaker 2: I wanted to, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Be distracted from the crab because I then had to
Speaker 1: go home and deal with it still so and I
Speaker 1: don't like misery enjoys company.
Speaker 2: I didn't want that.
Speaker 1: I didn't want our show to now become something about
Speaker 1: the dead husband society. But I also didn't want it
Speaker 1: to be something that was avoided, and it was why
Speaker 1: I consciously didn't attach myself to beyond blue or suicide places,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking, I don't I don't know who I
Speaker 1: am in this. I just know I have I want
Speaker 1: to be Robin Bailey on the radio. And look, there
Speaker 1: were absolutely times where Sarah Burrellis's Brave was a.
Speaker 2: Song that had just come out and that was a
Speaker 2: real trigger for me.
Speaker 1: And there were times where that song would go on
Speaker 1: and then I'd have to just sort of take a minute.
Speaker 1: And my guys never made mention of it. They just
Speaker 1: would keep going right right. But you know, there is
Speaker 1: a capacity, as you would well not kate. You know,
Speaker 1: you can put on a clown nose and get out
Speaker 1: and do it. That's that's our job.
Speaker 3: Although that's showbies. There's no people like show people. They
Speaker 3: smile when they are down. That's the That's the thing.
Speaker 3: When you were waking in the morning, and when you
Speaker 3: were leaving the house and you were leaving the boys,
Speaker 3: how was that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, And this is in the book till
Speaker 1: I'm a very spiritual person and I just have to
Speaker 1: believe there's something greater than myself, and I would rely
Speaker 1: on that quite heavily. So I wipe my and I
Speaker 1: still do to this day, I white light myself every morning.
Speaker 1: I kind of I just I put us bin on
Speaker 1: what my intention is for the day.
Speaker 2: Today is going to be a great day.
Speaker 1: And if I'm feeling really crappy, okay, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: through this with a smile on my face, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I try and be my authentic self, but I also
Speaker 1: try and do it in a hopeful positive way, because
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like I want to impart my crap.
Speaker 1: If someone asks, or if there is a genuine heart
Speaker 1: to heart conversation, totally different. And what I think happened
Speaker 1: with our show that really resonated was that I opened
Speaker 1: a door for a conversation about grief, which I don't
Speaker 1: think had really happened very much. We did talk about suicide,
Speaker 1: but not a lot, only because we don't.
Speaker 2: Talk about death.
Speaker 1: We don't Western society, we don't have rituals around death
Speaker 1: all those things we really need. And so I think
Speaker 1: I just by being really authentic and honest, I just
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, today's a shitty day, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get better and it will be better.
Speaker 1: Give me five minutes and then I go out white
Speaker 1: like myself come back in and off we go.
Speaker 3: I'm struck by the power of suicide that it throws
Speaker 3: ripples into the pond, different ripples than the normal death, which,
Speaker 3: like you said, we're not societally equipped to have these
Speaker 3: rituals with it, but we are familiar with it. Suicide
Speaker 3: seems like it almost leaves the people behind to do
Speaker 3: the work.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know. The number one question is why?
Speaker 1: And you know it's funny in the book, I wonder,
Speaker 1: and you know, from an editorial perspective, I wonder if
Speaker 1: I catch myself up a bit about the why question,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I'm like, you can't you know, there is
Speaker 1: no answer, But then I still challenge myself on that, you.
Speaker 3: Know, but you're always looking. That's the nature of because
Speaker 3: humans are only life and death. That's all we have.
Speaker 3: So if someone has opted out of life and chosen death,
Speaker 3: those remaining have to ask why.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And for the boys, you know, like I and I,
Speaker 1: it's taken me a long time and this book was
Speaker 1: really helps Lank Cathartic. I was hell bent on presenting
Speaker 1: Tony as I believed he was, not just my experiences
Speaker 1: of him.
Speaker 2: If that's the if you understand the differentiation.
Speaker 1: This book is my boy's book and my book, and
Speaker 1: those boys loved him so much and he loved them.
Speaker 1: My responsibility is to make sure that he is seen
Speaker 1: as a complete human.
Speaker 2: I hope that through and what you.
Speaker 1: Read in the book is my part of that demise
Speaker 1: from his perspective. And the prologue opens with it being
Speaker 1: pretty brutal on myself. And that took a long time
Speaker 1: to really hone in on because I'm like, you need
Speaker 1: to sit here, and if Tony was writing this, what
Speaker 1: would he say about you? And I went back and
Speaker 1: back and back because it would have been angry, particularly
Speaker 1: the end of his life, it would have been really vitriolic.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to make sure that he was presented
Speaker 1: in a way that was good so the kids could
Speaker 1: read it. And Finn my Elder said, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the great things he's really enjoyed about this book
Speaker 1: is remembering the good stuff, because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff.
Speaker 3: You not only did that for Tony, like you've presented
Speaker 3: him as a very well rounded human, but you also
Speaker 3: do you put the blow torch on yourself. And there's
Speaker 3: a chapter. This was the first chapter. I think that
Speaker 3: when I was reading this book and I went this,
Speaker 3: do you know what chapter I'm going to talk about.
Speaker 3: It's about the affair. The affair. Oh my goodness, this
Speaker 3: is your affair. You wrote about how you had an
Speaker 3: affair before your marriage was over, and that you told
Speaker 3: your husband about it. Yeah, and in fact she got caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah I did.
Speaker 1: And you know again, and I say this very clearly,
Speaker 1: and I have I really want to protect the innocent here,
Speaker 1: and by innocent I mean the people. I don't identify anyone,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to. They know who they are.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll get a copy of the book. I'm
Speaker 1: sure their family will too, But I really you know,
Speaker 1: the thing about making choices in life, regardless of what
Speaker 1: they are, you have.
Speaker 2: To own them.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to, you know, make excuses for
Speaker 1: anything other than saying I know what I did and
Speaker 1: the consequences of that were diabolical to the people I.
Speaker 2: Love the most, which are my children.
Speaker 1: But also what I would say is that Tony made
Speaker 1: a choice to take his own life, which had another
Speaker 1: consequence that the innocent people, again were our children. We
Speaker 1: are because we're human and we make mistakes. But you know,
Speaker 1: you started by asking about suicide, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1: It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And we often,
Speaker 1: I mean not as much now because it's nearly twelve years,
Speaker 1: but we have spoken a lot about where would Dad
Speaker 1: be now, Dad be happy in a relationship. Hopefully Dad
Speaker 1: did have a business and have paid off his bills.
Speaker 1: Dad would have seen his son by his first unit,
Speaker 1: which is just happening in Coopero, and been so proud.
Speaker 1: You know, suicide that decision on that day, in that
Speaker 1: moment when it all felt too much.
Speaker 2: It's forever now for those boys.
Speaker 3: Do you think, Robin, that there's an element of wanting
Speaker 3: to hurt in it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Me? Oh?
Speaker 1: He wrote on the mirror, goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend.
Speaker 1: It was like dramatic in my favorite red lipstick. The
Speaker 1: things that were open in the car that he'd so
Speaker 1: lovingly built with his children and his best mate was
Speaker 1: our favorite wedding photo. The album was open at that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think I genuinely feel and I talk a
Speaker 1: bit about this from my spiritual perspective as well. I
Speaker 1: think he wanted to say to the world, look what
Speaker 1: she's doing to me, Look how much she's hurting me.
Speaker 1: Look what this has taken me too. I don't think
Speaker 1: for a minute he meant to do it.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think the way he timed it was that I
Speaker 1: would come home, or he'd save himself, like he'd try
Speaker 1: and save himself and get to a point and then
Speaker 1: But you know, that's the thing, is that it's didn't
Speaker 1: happen like that.
Speaker 3: Coming up, Robin reveals the chapter of her book she
Speaker 3: was most afraid to write and what it cost her.
Speaker 3: How were the boy when they read So they've read
Speaker 3: your manuscript obviously, and they've each had their own chapter.
Speaker 3: As you said at the end, how would they when
Speaker 3: they read about the affair.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of things to say about that.
Speaker 1: They didn't read the book until after they'd finished their chapters.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's right. That person took them through to get there.
Speaker 1: So go writ Yeah, a ghost writer read my manuscript
Speaker 1: and then asked them specific questions. Then they worked their
Speaker 1: manuscript their chapters up, and then before anything was published,
Speaker 1: they then read my manuscript and were able to change
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted.
Speaker 2: But no, no, no, they knew about the affair.
Speaker 1: Cape I had to sit down when the paper approached
Speaker 1: me to say that his father had gone to the
Speaker 1: paper and they were going to put it on the
Speaker 1: front page of the Sunday Mail.
Speaker 2: I had to sit them down and tell them.
Speaker 1: So I told them as a fifth dean thirteen and
Speaker 1: ten year old, like, well, actually he was eleven by
Speaker 1: that stage. Like they've known, they've known for a long time.
Speaker 3: So when you speak about that, you acknowledge the shame
Speaker 3: that you felt. How is that?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, how is that in talking to your children?
Speaker 3: Because it's not also very often that are you acknowledge
Speaker 3: it or you have you're in the position where you
Speaker 3: were feeling with children? Yeah, how is that?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a special kind of hell
Speaker 1: when you're fifteen year old's son looks at you with disgust.
Speaker 2: Really and justified.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think the greatest therapy I've ever done
Speaker 1: is to forgive myself.
Speaker 2: And I don't say that lightly.
Speaker 1: And I know that people who are very black and
Speaker 1: white in this world will read this book and go,
Speaker 1: mat fine, totally fine. But we are human beings having
Speaker 1: a human experience, and we all make mistakes and I'm
Speaker 1: not dismissing mine. If you read this book, I hope
Speaker 1: you feel I am taking full accountability for it with
Speaker 1: no excuses. I know why it happened, in the timeframe
Speaker 1: it happened, and why it happened with that person, and
Speaker 1: I also know that the consequences of it were diabolical
Speaker 1: for everyone involved, and a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: an affair do not have the consequences we had. So
Speaker 1: what you know, if you go actively out to hurt people,
Speaker 1: which was what that decision did, then there is a consequence.
Speaker 1: And I think it's taken me a really long time.
Speaker 1: But I also know that I'm here woman, and I
Speaker 1: now have a very different perspective on life. I really
Speaker 1: do because of that.
Speaker 3: And also I would imagine a different you would be
Speaker 3: able to bring different strategies to be on what was
Speaker 3: your yearning?
Speaker 2: Yeap.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because lou my middle son, not that
Speaker 1: long ago, said Mum, do you think you'll ever have
Speaker 1: an affair again?
Speaker 2: I said, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I mean human beings are also put on this planet
Speaker 1: to learn lessons and not repeat them. And you know
Speaker 1: that whole thing of once a cheetor always the tuator.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that for a second. I think we
Speaker 1: all but you have to feel it, and you have
Speaker 1: to go through it, and you have to feel that
Speaker 1: shame and feel that guilt.
Speaker 3: I think the part of the reason that it was
Speaker 3: so striking was that it was at odds with your honesty. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like your honesty is your touchstone in your character. Me
Speaker 3: knowing you primarily through this book, I would put my
Speaker 3: faith in you.
Speaker 1: I think that in that context, I think I told
Speaker 1: myself a whole lot of stuff, and I certainly say
Speaker 1: that in the book. It went against my spiritual principles.
Speaker 1: It went against my it went against my feminist beliefs,
Speaker 1: It went against absolutely everything that I behold true as
Speaker 1: a human being. But this is the point, right, like,
Speaker 1: unless you're going to hit that rock bottom, you don't
Speaker 1: know who you are and where you're bounce.
Speaker 2: I don't recommend it.
Speaker 1: Don't do it people, But sometimes it was what like
Speaker 1: if that time had happened again, knowing who I was
Speaker 1: at that point, I don't know that I would have
Speaker 1: had the capacity to say no, I don't would. I mean,
Speaker 1: in those circumstances will never happen again in my life,
Speaker 1: not ever, So in that respect, I'll never do it again.
Speaker 1: But if I were to go back there and go
Speaker 1: would I have had the power and the.
Speaker 2: Courage, No, because I didn't then. So you know, I just.
Speaker 1: I just think it is given me a depth of
Speaker 1: forgiveness for humanity, starting with myself.
Speaker 2: That's all I can say.
Speaker 3: Often the hardest place to start.
Speaker 1: And also I had to seek forgiveness from my children,
Speaker 1: and you know, they just they'd they'd been abandoned by
Speaker 1: one parent and here was the other one telling them
Speaker 1: potentially a good reason why, you know, and I had
Speaker 1: to ask them to have faith in me and believe
Speaker 1: in me, and you know, see what I was doing
Speaker 1: to make a difference in that environment, and I do
Speaker 1: truly believe that just pegging it back bit by bit,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had to regain their trust and
Speaker 1: that was not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 3: You also kind of had to regain yourself, I guess
Speaker 3: as a I mean, you're a widow, but you're also
Speaker 3: a woman. You're a mother, but you're also a woman,
Speaker 3: and you're a woman who is very attractive to me.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say, you have that you know, connection with me,
Speaker 3: and when did that start to when did you feel
Speaker 3: that need to rediscover yourself that led to you meeting Sean.
Speaker 1: You're it's funny, Kate, I'd see it slightly differently. I
Speaker 1: think I didn't understand, man. I think it's taken me
Speaker 1: a lot of time. I've done a lot of work
Speaker 1: on myself through therapies like EMDR to try and understand.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't. I just didn't. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: You know what they Yeah, I think what did they say?
Speaker 1: That girls learn how to be treated by their fathers, boys.
Speaker 2: Learn how to behave.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I knew how to be treated,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that I knew how to respond.
Speaker 1: And I think I chose. You know, Tony was quite
Speaker 1: an emotionally unavailable man, and I think that was safer, right,
Speaker 1: So you know what to do with that?
Speaker 3: But you know what else, because I think life prepares
Speaker 3: you in all sorts of strange ways that maybe you
Speaker 3: recognize in retrospect your spiritual practice which you had for
Speaker 3: your whole life as a life. Yeah, you're waking up
Speaker 3: with men on commercial. That's very male energy that you're
Speaker 3: waking up with. It really makes you familiar with me.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I always say, you know, like the pendulum's
Speaker 1: got a swing. So if we're having a human experience
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to experience everything. Then the fact that
Speaker 1: I only grew up with women. Of course, I chose
Speaker 1: in industry that I only worked with men, and then
Speaker 1: had three sons, so you know, I do understand that
Speaker 1: there's been a steep.
Speaker 2: Learning and then had two husbands three babe.
Speaker 3: But yeah, are you married another one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the first beginning of the first one.
Speaker 3: Oh, sorry, I don't mean to be.
Speaker 2: That was my Britney spurious, lovely fella the steel Mates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, of course, because I think, I yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know I was. I mean, two of them died
Speaker 1: to be fair, and I don't and I think if
Speaker 1: Shan were alive, I would be very much married to
Speaker 1: him and be super happy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, meant to.
Speaker 3: Be your love story was hard one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, I think.
Speaker 1: Because I came in with a lot of trauma, and
Speaker 1: I think I also came in really defensive. Like I
Speaker 1: remember what my counselor saying to me, Robin, at what
Speaker 1: point are you going to put down your weapons when
Speaker 1: you're going to stop being the warrior and stop being
Speaker 1: the queen?
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2: You know, like it was just this, like what's next.
Speaker 1: Come on here we are? Yeah, I think, and with
Speaker 1: Sean I believed, you know, we kept breaking up and
Speaker 1: getting back together because he didn't want to step parent.
Speaker 2: And my kids were too little, and I wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: leave hood. I just wasn't. I couldn't.
Speaker 3: And he was based in Sydney, you were in Brisbane
Speaker 3: and you had been former colleagues who had rediscovered three months. Yes,
Speaker 3: he wasn't.
Speaker 2: He was just my boss at Fox.
Speaker 1: FM for three months and helped get me a job
Speaker 1: from an assistant producer. He actually helped me get my
Speaker 1: first on job at Triple T and Tazzy on the
Speaker 1: Triple T Morning crew. So I literally only worked with
Speaker 1: him for three months. But yeah, and I wouldn't even say, oh,
Speaker 1: we had a deep connection. We really didn't like. He
Speaker 1: was just he was just a kind guy in the industry.
Speaker 3: Did he think you had a deep connection?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Did he remember you differently than you remembered him?
Speaker 2: Ah, he remembered me, but he you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that has come about since his
Speaker 1: death is that so many people have come out of
Speaker 1: the woodwork about how kind Sean was to their career
Speaker 1: and how much he really championed people, and I think
Speaker 1: I was one of someone he wanted to see go
Speaker 1: forth and do well. And he kept tabs on everyone
Speaker 1: that he worked with and were progressing and doing stuff,
Speaker 1: and I was just one of them.
Speaker 3: When you discovered each other in a romantic scense, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: what did that feel like? Did it feel like? Because
Speaker 3: I get the sense that it felt like something you
Speaker 3: hadn't felt before.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think the affair awakened in me a.
Speaker 2: Desire to be desired.
Speaker 1: And that is not being disrespectful to Tony, but I
Speaker 1: think our relationship had broken down so much that that
Speaker 1: had long gone for both of us, and he would
Speaker 1: say the same, I'm sure. So I think the affair
Speaker 1: gave me that sense that I could feel something and
Speaker 1: that was never you know, like that disintegrated quickly and fairly, idolutly,
Speaker 1: and then within Shawn, and I think I then had
Speaker 1: a different idea of what I wanted in a relationship,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I want to have a really deep
Speaker 1: heart connection with someone. And he was quite a spiritual person.
Speaker 1: He was a very deep feelers as a human being.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so we connected on a heart level very quickly,
Speaker 1: which is not something that had happened to me in
Speaker 1: a relationship before, and so that was what kept bringing
Speaker 1: me back, this feeling that we were supposed to be together.
Speaker 1: But you know, he was more head and heart, and
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, but practically I don't want to
Speaker 1: do this, this and this, and I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we can work it out.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Well you did work it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did in the end, but you know, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and that came to an ultimatum, which often happens, you know,
Speaker 1: where I just said that's enough. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: keep going backwards and forwards and playing around. It was
Speaker 1: really painful. This was a really couple of ease, on again,
Speaker 1: off again. We tried really hard, and then we went
Speaker 1: to a trip to Bali together with his one of
Speaker 1: his children and his girlfriend and then my three and
Speaker 1: I could see he was so uncomfortable playing happy families,
Speaker 1: and I think that him was like no, and then
Speaker 1: I just was a bit back on forwards and then
Speaker 1: I just said, look, okay, you need to be out
Speaker 1: of my life, and he was like, I didn't mean that,
Speaker 1: And so then we started.
Speaker 3: And how was it. The boys initially were not convinced.
Speaker 2: I played it. I took.
Speaker 1: I played a really long game with that, and being
Speaker 1: in Sydney that was easier. I went down there more
Speaker 1: often than he came up, and then when he started
Speaker 1: to come up, it was gradually. They were very busy
Speaker 1: with their own lives and I'd made it sure that
Speaker 1: they could still have their touch points. My boys were
Speaker 1: very into soccer. They spent their weekends with their mates.
Speaker 1: They're quite social kids. So it wasn't his mum's boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Did. It was more a gradual kind of this issue Nanni.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was more than a boyfriend. He was
Speaker 3: the love of your life.
Speaker 2: Well it turned out to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But you know that in itself was a process too,
Speaker 1: because cancer has a way of stripping off the bullshit,
Speaker 1: and when he was diagnosed with liver cancer, we went
Speaker 1: on that journey and then when it became terminal, it
Speaker 1: became really real. And I think Sean's way of dealing
Speaker 1: with that was to really dig deep into his heart
Speaker 1: and have the relationships he wanted to have.
Speaker 2: And all credit to him, I mean I found the.
Speaker 1: Way he then communicated with anyone that came into his
Speaker 1: orbit was really special and that's because he decided that
Speaker 1: he wanted it to be real and sincere, and so
Speaker 1: that meant a different level of communication with me, and
Speaker 1: we fought really hard, like cancer is such a beast,
Speaker 1: and there's the Western style and then there's the alternative,
Speaker 1: and then there's confusion in between. And you know, so
Speaker 1: I think when you're fighting for common cause, it changes
Speaker 1: a relationship because it's external to you and you're both
Speaker 1: focusing on that. And we were both fighting so hard
Speaker 1: together and the boys got involved in that, and his
Speaker 1: children too, and so there was this real sense of
Speaker 1: us pushing for to try and get him as much
Speaker 1: time as we could.
Speaker 3: And you decided to get married. And that was eleven
Speaker 3: months before he died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So his terminal diagnosis was I think to August,
Speaker 1: and then he proposed literally that like was he was
Speaker 1: diagnosed on a I think it was a Tuesday afternoon,
Speaker 1: and I took Wednesday, as did the kids, and his
Speaker 1: kids came up and we took Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The Wednesday,
Speaker 1: we went to Movie World to blow off some steam
Speaker 1: and he proposed then and then it was like, let's
Speaker 1: do this quickly, so we had nine weeks, but in
Speaker 1: that time he started some pretty aggressive treatments. So, but
Speaker 1: that wedding, and you know, there's something to be said
Speaker 1: for the bloody mindedness of people when they want something.
Speaker 1: And he fought really hard to make that wedding day
Speaker 1: despite being in intensive care like weeks previously.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the wedding day was was I think the
Speaker 3: chapter where I started crying.
Speaker 2: I love the wedding. The wedding was the best week
Speaker 2: our lives.
Speaker 3: Just amazing.
Speaker 2: It was so fun.
Speaker 1: It was so fun, It was so joyous, it was
Speaker 1: so you know, it just was everything. The kids walked
Speaker 1: me down the aisle, his kids walked him down the aisle.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just we had maraccas, we had people
Speaker 1: had drinks, like they were dancing to the music as
Speaker 1: we're dancing, and there's this great video just that moment
Speaker 1: as we enter the hall, and there's.
Speaker 2: Just so much good love to see that. Yeah, of
Speaker 2: course it's the greatest. I love it. I still watch
Speaker 2: it. It just makes me happy.
Speaker 3: And you go from the intense joy of that day,
Speaker 3: which I think is amplified by the fact that everybody
Speaker 3: in the room knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had terminal caes Yes to searching.
Speaker 3: I mean, having your honeymoon overseas with all the kids. Incredible,
Speaker 3: an incredible three week trip with nine people.
Speaker 2: I know, it was so fun. There were moments crazy.
Speaker 3: But crazy, but also a man who's dying, yeah, but
Speaker 3: who's pushing through Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and did like really did, and you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about it during the honeymoon. We
Speaker 1: did one other overseas trip in June July when he
Speaker 1: was getting really unwell, and again like just pushing, pushing,
Speaker 1: and that you know, there's photos in the book where
Speaker 1: you see at the start of the trip that he
Speaker 1: looks quite healthy, and just two weeks later, when I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get him home, he's very unwell. But you know,
Speaker 1: again that bloody mindedness is. And I'm so grateful because
Speaker 1: he knew we were creating memories. Like he knew we
Speaker 1: were creating memories for everyone.
Speaker 3: And at one point he sees, I can't remember what
Speaker 3: it is. I think you're at a concert or something.
Speaker 3: He's looking at you, he's not looking at the stage,
Speaker 3: and he said, I'm trying to I'm making I know
Speaker 3: that I've only got one chance for you to remember
Speaker 3: this forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Hugh Jackman, I think.
Speaker 1: You Jackman's that's right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: he but he didn't want to. And I feel really
Speaker 1: sad for his daughter, particularly Ali, because she desperately wanted letters,
Speaker 1: you know, she wanted him to write stuff about when
Speaker 1: she got married or when she had a baby, and
Speaker 1: he just couldn't.
Speaker 2: He just couldn't. It was too much for him to.
Speaker 1: He wanted to help us have the greatest moments with him,
Speaker 1: but he didn't want to think what he would miss
Speaker 1: out on fair enough, really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to put yourself in a place where
Speaker 3: you're not going to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he didn't want to. And I know that
Speaker 1: that's been really sad for our you know, but her
Speaker 1: daughter looks I can see Sean in her daughter, and
Speaker 1: I know they do certain rituals.
Speaker 3: You know, because you were also the love of his
Speaker 3: life and his kids were grown up but young. Do
Speaker 3: you think they felt like you took something of their
Speaker 3: father from them? Oh?
Speaker 2: Probably, And I think I probably did.
Speaker 1: And certainly having three boys, you know, if I had
Speaker 1: my time over again in terms of his kids, I
Speaker 1: would want to do it differently.
Speaker 2: And I say that in the book.
Speaker 1: I have such love and respect for his children, Jamie
Speaker 1: and Elli and his ex Megan, and I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I get a bit uncomfortable about, you know, for human
Speaker 1: for them saying I'm the greatest love because I think
Speaker 1: he was so proud of his kids, like there was
Speaker 1: nothing more important for him. But I think when you're dying,
Speaker 1: it just everything has to be in sharp focus. And
Speaker 1: I would hope that they, in some place in their
Speaker 1: heart realized that I tried to make it easier for
Speaker 1: them because I did the cancer journey with him, and
Speaker 1: if they if he'd been in Sydney, they would have
Speaker 1: done it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely they would have, but it would have been really tough.
Speaker 3: By the way, I just want to make something really clear.
Speaker 3: You never had an affair with him. It was not
Speaker 3: an affair. When you mentioned his ex wife and Megan,
Speaker 3: I just thought because of our previous reference, no no, no,
Speaker 3: no no no. I just want to make sure that
Speaker 3: they know. For people who dip in and dip out
Speaker 3: of powers, I did not, you know how I was saying,
Speaker 3: In strange ways, life has prepared you for what's to come.
Speaker 3: And so there was your spiritual practice and your aligning
Speaker 3: with Sean over that. But what you did with your
Speaker 3: radio show, when you brought your grief to the people,
Speaker 3: and not on a constant basis, but when you showed
Speaker 3: yourself and went to here I am in a most
Speaker 3: humble and humbling manner. That meant that people felt that
Speaker 3: they really connected with you. That also stood you in
Speaker 3: such good stead when you had something I've never heard
Speaker 3: of in commercial radio before, like amazing. So was this
Speaker 3: last year the year before last night? Were you when
Speaker 3: you got sacked from your breakfast show?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Which was it was? We finished up at the end
Speaker 2: of November. Yeah, so you.
Speaker 3: Were told you'd done it. Seent shock waves you know
Speaker 3: through radio circles because you and your show.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean it had been going on for
Speaker 1: months behind the scenes, and it wasn't so shocking for
Speaker 1: us because there had been five hundred people or at
Speaker 1: that stage four hundred people who'd lost their jobs within
Speaker 1: our networks. So, I mean our radio station was decimated anyway,
Speaker 1: and we were the last people standing. You know, everything
Speaker 1: else was networked out of Sydney in some ways. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like we were waiting for it, and it was
Speaker 1: we were unsure as to what would happen.
Speaker 2: So I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think the general public knew that
Speaker 1: although it was uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Like, what they did know was that you were gone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I just love this that the people rose up,
Speaker 3: you know, the people rose up. They didn't like it.
Speaker 3: They replaced you with a guide. They didn't like it.
Speaker 3: And I say it's amazing because listeners will have worked
Speaker 3: with people like this. But radio is full of people
Speaker 3: like this. The managers and the people who make the
Speaker 3: decisions never acknowledge that they've made a mistake. They will
Speaker 3: back in a bad decision to the demise of their
Speaker 3: own radio station. You can see it all around the country.
Speaker 3: But what happened to you, Robin Bailey.
Speaker 1: Well, what happened was there was a change of gud
Speaker 1: and even though the new guard, and it's written in
Speaker 1: the book, the new CEO had been there for nine
Speaker 1: months and was part of the decision to let us go.
Speaker 2: He I think because he wasn't a radio guy.
Speaker 1: He came from television, and I think there was a
Speaker 1: group of people around and there were others coming in.
Speaker 1: They just didn't realize what was going to happen. And
Speaker 1: it was revenue as well as listeners. And also I
Speaker 1: mean the listeners revenue g yeah, true, but believe me,
Speaker 1: in radio terms, at our separate things.
Speaker 3: Especially at the moment Hope alone.
Speaker 1: And also I think there was a realization that certainly
Speaker 1: on Brisbane radio, there was only going to be one
Speaker 1: woman for one hour, and that was going to be
Speaker 1: Jackie Oh in the Hour of Power, which was a
Speaker 1: repeat of their breakfast show that played for an hour
Speaker 1: at six to seven at night. One woman on commercial
Speaker 1: radio in our network. I mean, are you joking in Brisbane?
Speaker 1: So I think there was a whole lot of things
Speaker 1: that came to pass, but I'm so grateful. And it
Speaker 1: was I think it was fifteen days between and I'd
Speaker 1: flown to Sydney to work with my editor to rewrite
Speaker 1: the end of the book right, and I was sitting
Speaker 1: in her I was sitting in her apartment in like
Speaker 1: RUSSI Cuta's bay and my phone goes off and the
Speaker 1: bigger boss from Sydney is on the line and I'm
Speaker 1: like wash it hello, Like what And when you told me,
Speaker 1: I got really angry.
Speaker 2: I got really angry because it felt like the most
Speaker 2: abusive relationship I'd ever been in.
Speaker 1: You know, I love you, I don't love you you
Speaker 1: and you've got to understand this is the second time
Speaker 1: the company had done it to me. Yeah, it happened
Speaker 1: to previously and I'd been brought back. So I was
Speaker 1: pretty harsh and just said, you know, why did you
Speaker 1: put us through this?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 1: And to his credit, he took it amen, And then
Speaker 1: I said, he said, I'd run you first. He might
Speaker 1: well have total three of us that might by the way,
Speaker 1: and he said, I've got to talk to Keep and
Speaker 1: Cory and Keep, knowing the beast that he is, he
Speaker 1: needed time to process, and Corey just said, I'll do
Speaker 1: whatever the other guys want to and so then we
Speaker 1: were kind of going, Okay, what does this look like
Speaker 1: and what does this mean?
Speaker 2: Because seven people in our.
Speaker 1: Show lost their job that day that it all finished,
Speaker 1: and all of those behind it, well most be behind
Speaker 1: the scenes people couldn't come back and so they got
Speaker 1: other great jobs. So it was like, well, what are
Speaker 1: we going to do now? And the situation hadn't changed
Speaker 1: where the company was still pretty you know, like struggling
Speaker 1: to Yeah, I've got to.
Speaker 2: Be really careful what I say. But you know, our
Speaker 2: situation hadn't changed.
Speaker 3: And we don't need to get into the ins and
Speaker 3: outs of it. But my point is if you had
Speaker 3: not shared with your listeners the full ex stint of
Speaker 3: who you were, you never would have had that relationship. Okay,
Speaker 3: don't you think don't you think that's quite amazing that
Speaker 3: that what you did because you didn't know any other
Speaker 3: way to be, would ten years later or eight years
Speaker 3: later stand in such good stead for you that people
Speaker 3: saw you the whole of you and wanted you. There's
Speaker 3: no greater compliment.
Speaker 1: From strangers, from strangers who know you absolutely absolutely and
Speaker 1: you know again, I'd go back to that point of
Speaker 1: be you know, age appropriate, not necessarily for our listeners,
Speaker 1: but be honest, because don't we as human beings want that?
Speaker 1: And I think there was a connection. And I don't
Speaker 1: take full credit for this. I think Corey, shut up,
Speaker 1: shut up.
Speaker 3: They're not on, then, I'm not talking to them.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about then. You're very good at giving
Speaker 1: people credit. But well, there's there's no single female on
Speaker 1: commercial radio breakfast.
Speaker 2: I can't think of one commercial not.
Speaker 1: ABC, no like, there's no single female, there's no duo like.
Speaker 3: Also, I don't have a desire for that because we're
Speaker 3: well like, I'm a companion creature. I love the I
Speaker 3: love the plant. So do you. You're very social?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: I have to ask you, what does joy look like
Speaker 3: for you now? Because through even the darkness, you really
Speaker 3: have punctuated all those periods with joy.
Speaker 1: Joey for me now And look, I am in a
Speaker 1: different phase of my life. My boys have all moved out,
Speaker 1: and that is a special kind of hell. I pull
Speaker 1: it the most painful breakup of my life, you know,
Speaker 1: with your when your children, and yet it's the greatest
Speaker 1: gift because they're all amazing, functioning adults, living their best
Speaker 1: lives and don't need their mother in their corner.
Speaker 2: So I've done my job. But it is very painful.
Speaker 2: I does him make me cry?
Speaker 1: It's very painful for them not to be here with me.
Speaker 1: And you know, I actively put them on a plane
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three together and said meet me in
Speaker 1: Scotland in nine weeks time for one of our o
Speaker 1: pair's weddings, because I knew that, particularly my eldest was well.
Speaker 1: Actually your three of them were so worried that something
Speaker 1: was going to happen to mom that they didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave the mess, and I'm like, you've got to go.
Speaker 1: You've got to go see the world and see that
Speaker 1: the world's fantastic. And Mum's okay.
Speaker 2: So so will.
Speaker 3: They'll be watching this video? Will they be watching him?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I told them Mom's fantastic. In the world's fantastic. Mum's okay,
Speaker 3: She's fine.
Speaker 2: They know that now.
Speaker 1: I think my special kind of joy is my boys.
Speaker 1: I built this really big deck. I bought a tiny
Speaker 1: little Queenslander and I built a big deck on the
Speaker 1: back with a huge TV and a big barbecue. And
Speaker 1: they come here and I'm three hundred meters from sun corpse.
Speaker 1: So they'll have the footy on the telly and hear
Speaker 1: the cheers and then see the goal and they'll bring
Speaker 1: their mates over, and the bar fridge is always stopped,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll you know. So my special kind
Speaker 1: of joy is my boys choosing to spend time with me.
Speaker 1: My special kind of joy is still my work. And
Speaker 1: I really, really really want to straddle this book with
Speaker 1: a podcast about human stories, which I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people do. Don't get me wrong, but I feel
Speaker 1: like there's something about grief and loss and hope and
Speaker 1: those kind of stories too, that can that the world
Speaker 1: needs right now. So I want to be able to
Speaker 1: do that, find a platform. That stuff gives me a
Speaker 1: huge amount of joy.
Speaker 2: Boyfriend, I've got it. Yes, I was going to get
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, my Mum's way. He's not way
Speaker 1: down in this, but he is. Also you know, there's
Speaker 1: been it's a it's a I'm a lot and there's
Speaker 1: been a big grief journey and it's been it's been hard.
Speaker 1: It's been hard re establishing a life without my children
Speaker 1: and just focusing on me and finding love.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot to explain.
Speaker 2: There's a lot to explain.
Speaker 1: And he has also had a pretty complicated life which
Speaker 1: has come with its own trauma. So I think that's
Speaker 1: been interesting for both of us. And you know, mate,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I kind of I'm pretty raw
Speaker 1: with everyone in my life. So that's a lot to take,
Speaker 1: like I can, and you know, it hasn't been easy
Speaker 1: for him. And also this book, right, like imagine.
Speaker 2: Your girlfriend had read all about my past life and
Speaker 2: now one of them was the love of my life.
Speaker 3: Has he read it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that he read the long version which is I
Speaker 1: think would have been a special kind of hell. So
Speaker 1: he's I've given him the new one, and I mean
Speaker 1: he's mentioned in it too. I'm very grateful to him.
Speaker 1: He's very different from Sean. He's very different from Tiny.
Speaker 1: He lives on the sunny coast. He's very practical minded
Speaker 1: and has been absolutely fundamental in helping me navigate through
Speaker 1: all this.
Speaker 2: Stuff with work.
Speaker 1: He's ex military, so he's quite a strategic thinker.
Speaker 3: And he's a biker. A biker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you are too. I am too now.
Speaker 1: But see, this is the thing. My special kind of
Speaker 1: joy comes in adventures. My special kind of joy comes
Speaker 1: in what next, you know, like I have. I think
Speaker 1: the two deaths of Sean and Tony taught me that
Speaker 1: life can change quickly and instantly, and so live it,
Speaker 1: live it now, and.
Speaker 2: So that I love that. Like, yeah, that's so funn Well.
Speaker 3: That's very much the message of your Flamingo's book.
Speaker 2: So tell me what you really thought.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've told you what I really thought. I
Speaker 3: really really, I absolutely was so impressed by it, by you,
Speaker 3: by your courage, by your honesty, like I said, breathtaking
Speaker 3: at times, by the pain that you have experienced and
Speaker 3: the lessons that you yourself have taken from it, but
Speaker 3: that you also in part for others. The story of
Speaker 3: Sean dying, which you wrote conveyed through the notes you
Speaker 3: were taking at the time, is one of the most
Speaker 3: beautiful and exquisitely painful things I've ever read. Is really,
Speaker 3: you've just given you so many people a gift with
Speaker 3: this book that anyone who has had grief will see
Speaker 3: that there is, you know, there's a rainbow after the rain.
Speaker 3: And I'm really sorry that you've had the pain that
Speaker 3: you've had in your life. But I'm also really glad
Speaker 3: that it happened to you because you could bring yourself
Speaker 3: to it and share it with people.
Speaker 2: I'm such a radio person. I'm waiting for the butt.
Speaker 3: No, there's no bar. Well, you'll provide the bar, you'll
Speaker 3: drop that in. But Robin Bailey, I have to thank
Speaker 3: you for sharing yourself so profoundly. Ah.
Speaker 2: Thanks mate.
Speaker 3: There's a kind of honesty in Robin that feels very rare.
Speaker 3: She's honest about grief, about love, about the choices she's made,
Speaker 3: and she's honest about the ones she wishes she hadn't
Speaker 3: and what stays with me from that conversation is not
Speaker 3: just what she's been through, but how she's made sense
Speaker 3: of it. Her memoir is called Flamingo's Aunt Born Pink,
Speaker 3: and it's as honest as this conversation. If you or
Speaker 3: someone you love is struggling, We've included links to support
Speaker 3: services in the show notes. Thank you so much for
Speaker 3: listening to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter
Speaker 3: is pre Player. The assistant producer is Coco Levine. Audio
Speaker 3: production and video editing by Josh Green. I am Kate Langbrook.
Speaker 3: I will see you next Monday for another incredible conversation