The Strength of Our Dreams

by Sara Henderson

  Franz and I thought her solution was brilliant. But I suppose when you have been solving problems like these for most of your life, they eventually become easier. The work involved had been hard and when I came back into the room with a cup of tea she and Ben were asleep in the chair.

  Early the next day Franz went out on the road with all the tools needed to get the trailer moving and brought it back into the workshop for repair. There wasn’t a moment to spare as Marlee had to leave for Katherine to get Bazza to the showground in time for registration.

  She would be gone for a few days so there was no way enough milk could be stored. So it was off to the Royal Katherine Show for Ben in a short, one trailer version of a road train at the age of just two months.

  Most of the staff went to the show and helped with grooming Bazza. The truck made it to the showground at midnight and Bazza had to be groomed and in the ring by eight the next morning. Much to our excitement he won first prize in the other breeds category for the second year in a row. We also won the Land Care Award for the second time for our work with weed control and pasture improvement.

  The next highlight of my life would have to have been when I was appointed to the Board of Council for the Order of Australia in July.

  When I was told there would be two meetings a year for the council to sit and review the nominations, I thought this wouldn’t take too much of my time and fitted in well as I was in Canberra in the months of February and September for board meetings for the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation.

  Before long two very heavy suitcases turned up at the station with six blue folders the size of Sydney telephone books. When I read the information in the letter in the first case, I knew I was in for a lot more than just attending the two meetings in Canberra. It was clear that I had to not only read four thousand pages of information on the one thousand people nominated for Australia Day honours twice a year but I also needed to have a system by which I could quickly refer to anything I needed to at the meetings.

  So the months of July and August were filled with my usual station and travelling workloads, and the rest of the time I could be found with my head in a blue folder, reading. Along with this, I had another new job of taking care of baby Ben when Marlee wanted to do something outside and just couldn’t work out how to juggle a baby on one arm while doing it.

  To me the most important awards are the OAMs (Medal of the Order of Australia) which are awarded for local and community work. These people are never mentioned by the media, which is a shame, as it does the soul good to read about these wonderful people who devote their lives to helping others. So if you have received an OAM for your service to your local community, hold your head high as you are the most important part of the fabric of a strong society and a truly wonderful human being.

  A few more cooks arrived and left and I went to a conference for a mining company. I spoke at the closing event, a lunch that wives also attended.

  After my speech I was talking to people and signing books when a woman came up to me and said she had just won a lot of money on a bet. She went on to tell me that she had bet her husband that he would enjoy listening to me speak as she had read my books. His reply was, ‘What would a woman talking about raising cows on a farm have anything to say that I would remotely be interested in!’

  So they made the bet and he had to bring her to the luncheon, which was what she had wanted all along.

  The woman said she could see her husband was interested in what I had to say from very early on in the speech but was waiting for him to deny he’d enjoyed the talk. However when I finished he turned to her and said, ‘Well, you won that bet!’

  After a few more conferences I arrived home to a fax from James listing the top books of the year and I had two in the Australian top ten and three in the adult non-fiction list! Pan Macmillan South Africa also wanted to buy The Strength In Us All. I didn’t think I could survive another tour so it was decided I would do some newspaper interviews by phone and some radio link-ups.

  This was how I found myself back on the three-hour Sunday night religious talkback show. Only this time instead of it being nine o’clock at night, with the time difference I found myself sitting up in my office at four o’clock in the morning. I thought I would just say hello and talk for ten minutes then speak about the second book. But no … here I was back having a chat with the ‘What can I do with my life?’ people for the next three hours! I went back to bed at 7 a.m. and slept until lunchtime.

  On the 15th August I received a phone call to tell me Charlie’s mother had died in America at the age of 105. She would have been 106 in November. I thought about the amazing changes she would have seen over her lifetime.

  The season was shaping up to be a bad one for snakes. They were coming into the house far too often and there were a few close calls with king browns.

  I was sitting watching the news on television one evening and Sumie was lying on the floor next to my chair. Suddenly Sumie was standing, stock still, staring across the room. I followed her gaze and saw a king brown heading straight for us. I jumped onto the chair and told Sumie to do the same which she did without a second’s hesitation.

  I called out to Marlee to get the shotgun and threw a magazine at the snake to discourage it from its path which was towards our chair.

  It changed course just as Marlee appeared and seconds later it was minus a head. Sumie was congratulated for being so alert and received a large piece of chocolate cake. Then she promptly went looking for more snakes.

  I was feeling fairly weary by September and Danielle took me to the Hyatt Coolum for my birthday and we had a week of rest. I had a wonderful time—we played tennis and Danielle arranged beauty treatments and massages for me each day.

  We had long walks and were able for the first time in years to just talk. And I had uninterrupted time to spend with Natalie. By the end of the week I felt on top of the world. Which was fortunate because the next two and a half months held nonstop work and travel.

  James was off to the Frankfurt Book Fair and he’d said to me many times over the years that if we were going to get my first book into America the deal would probably be done in Frankfurt. It was now four years since my first book had been published and the American publishers still had not expressed interest in the book. I thought that maybe if I went to the Fair and met some of them, things might change. James thought it was a good idea and so I made arrangements and booked my ticket to Frankfurt. Marlee had always been at me to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair, so I was puzzled by her strange look when I walked into the kitchen and told her I was going there on the 1st October.

  I didn’t have too much time to ponder her strange reaction as I was off travelling again. I had two weeks doing the rounds of conferences and directors’ meetings and was finishing up in Sydney ready to leave for Frankfurt.

  When I reached Sydney I had two days to spare. I arrived back at the hotel one afternoon to find a message saying James had called and would call again that evening. He was in Scotland and was going to meet me in Frankfurt and I had excited thoughts about an American deal on my book already done.

  But when he called it was just to tell me he was delayed in Scotland so could I change my booking and leave a day later.

  Jane, my publicist, called and said she had arranged a meeting with the people who were working with us to produce a cookbook and she wanted me to meet them while I was in town. The meeting was arranged for 6 p.m. after which we would all go out to dinner before I left for Germany the next day.

  I called the station to talk to Marlee and Alan told me she was down in the breeder paddock. So I went shopping. I was strolling around David Jones’ lingerie floor, when I looked up and saw Marlee. You can imagine my surprise and for seconds I just stared, too shocked to say anything. I finally got out a weak, ‘Marlee, but … but …’

  ‘Hi, Mum!’

  ‘What do you mean, “Hi, Mum”? What on earth are you doing here in Sydney?’

 
; ‘Well I didn’t expect to run into you, but the family are having a surprise party for you this evening so now the cat is out of the bag. You will just have to pretend you don’t know anything about it and be really surprised tonight.’

  Just as she finished this explanation Danielle walked by. She had Natalie with her and was with two of my nieces, so we had a great family reunion in the middle of David Jones.

  We eventually went our separate ways and it took me most of the day to get over the amazing turn of events—meeting both my daughters within a few minutes of each other in downtown Sydney.

  Jane and Jeannine picked me up at my hotel at 5.30 and we went up to a hotel in Kings Cross to meet with the people I would be working with on the new book. When we arrived, we were standing at the top of the elevator in the hotel and Jane was introducing me to everyone when out of nowhere Mike Munro and a lot of cameras and microphone-booms appeared and Mike said those amazing words, ‘Sara Henderson, this is your life!’

  Now I was completely at a loss. I was having dinner with my publishers, having a surprise party for my birthday and now was about to go to the television studio for a television show!

  Jane calmed me down by saying it was all a set-up and I only had to be at the television show. Everyone had been working behind the scenes for months—they all knew about tonight, except me.

  The strange reaction from Marlee when I told her I had booked myself to go to Frankfurt on the 1st October now made sense as the 1st was tonight and I had planned to leave Sydney five hours earlier.

  Marlee had called Jane in Sydney and she had called James in Scotland who then called me and told me to delay my trip by one day. Marlee had come up with the family surprise birthday party on the spur of the moment.

  I was in a complete daze and for the entire evening I felt like I was watching the events unfold from the sideline. Which in a way I suppose I was, as my life story was being told as I watched and listened.

  Seeing old friends and remembering things that happened so long ago made it a very enjoyable evening and one I will remember forever. After the show finished there was a party which kept going until the people at the studio started pulling the set down around us, preparing for the next day’s show. We decided that maybe they wanted us to leave.

  The amazing coincidence of the night was the hotel where Mike surprised me. This hotel stands on the same ground as the old Mayfair Hotel once did. The Mayfair was the last hotel my dad managed before he retired and was the very same hotel Charlie lured me to with delightful, but not honourable, intentions. It was the hotel of the exploding bottle of champagne. In From Strength to Strength I describe how Charlie took me to Dad’s hotel, and ordered dinner in a room he had booked for the night! Not only did the champagne blow its top, Dad also arrived in the room and did the same.

  I was given a beautiful Rottie puppy on the show so I named him Munro. He has since grown into a dog the size of a Shetland pony and has the most gentle and delightful manner.

  The Frankfurt Book Fair is the experience of a lifetime. Publishers turn up there every year and seem to treat the whole thing as just part of everyday work, but to someone like me it was an out of this world experience.

  It took days to see all the publishers’ displays, and that was only the English language section. I did wander into other pavilions but the complex was so vast I thought I could be lost forever. I saw more books in a few days than I have in all my life.

  After being home for only one week I left for a five-day book tour of the areas near Sydney we missed on the last tour. We were driving back into the city after the last appointment of the tour when Jane mentioned the launch of Billy Thorpe’s book, Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll was being held in the Cross that night. ‘Want to go?’ She added.

  To her amazement I said, ‘Yes!’

  The launch was in the Mansions Hotel, straight across the street from where the old Mayfair Hotel used to be. So I was back down memory lane again. It was a rowdy night, as you would imagine, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

  The highlight of the evening was when Jane asked me if I’d like to meet Jack Thompson. He has always reminded me of an Australian version of my Charlie, so of course I said ‘Yes!’

  Jane introduced us but my name didn’t mean anything to him, but he was still very charming. Jane told him a bit more about me and as soon as she mentioned the Outback we had his attention.

  He had worked on a cattle station in the Territory when he was young and has loved the place ever since. He talked non-stop as his eyes took on a misty expression. I can tell you one fact about Jack Thompson. Apart from being charming and famous, he truly loves the Northern Territory Outback. Jane took a photo of us while he was talking about the days of his youth. I have included it in this book, because I think the photo says it all. It was a great end to another tour and an end with a difference!

  When I arrived home for the wet season, James called and said he had been trying to find me for days. He had in his hand a very important invitation and it had to be answered that day!

  ‘This will be a first for you, I can guarantee that!’ he said. I waited.

  ‘It is an invitation from the Prime Minister inviting you to have lunch with the President of the United States! Now what do you think of that!’

  It’s funny how the mind works, but up to that moment in time I had forgotten about my visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when Charlie and I had breakfast with President Nixon and his wife back in the late sixties. So I had to say, no, it would be the second time I’d had a meal with a President of the United States.

  James’s immediate reply was that I had never written about this. I said I was just jotting down a note to do just that in the book I was writing.

  My only answer to the ‘How could you forget?’ question was only, ‘I was married to Charlie.’ Life with Charlie was like a constant whirlwind. I think I was under so much pressure, just trying to survive that my brain must have divided itself into many separate compartments to cope with the deluge being thrown at it. My brain is now slowly throwing up all these astounding memories.

  Well, my lunch with Prime Minister Howard, Mrs Howard, President Clinton and Mrs Clinton was much the same as the breakfast with President Nixon. At least at the breakfast there were only a few hundred people. The lunch had at least twice that number. Politicians crowded around the famous couple for photos and took up all of their time, so the cross-section of Australians who had been invited didn’t get to say one word to our American visitors. Despite this, it was a great experience just being there.

  There were more conferences and directors’ meetings and I made it back home on the 24th November. I had been away so long Munro barked at me with authority and all his hair stood on end. When I spoke to him it triggered something in his memory and the hair went down and the stump of a tail started to wag. Soon his whole body was wagging along with it. He licked me all over in a grand welcome home performance.

  Violent storms started early in December as a cyclonic low moved in from the west. We had overcast weather from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day, so we had a wonderful period of cool weather and 1997 arrived quietly amidst soft rain.

  CHAPTER 13

  January 1997 – February 1997

  A phone call from Arthur, Bonnie’s estranged husband, shattered the pleasant start to the new year. Bonnie was writing a book with a ghostwriter and by all accounts it was not nice. I put the phone down after receiving this awful news and felt sick in the pit of my stomach. Days of turmoil followed with the inevitable question always surfacing. A question I had asked myself for many years. Why does this daughter of mine hate me so? I couldn’t understand this bitterness. But I knew this new saga was going to be ongoing and I would have to get used to it intruding into my life for the rest of the year.

  I was on a very tight schedule to finish my manuscript as I had to hand it in on the 15th March. But the phone call had put a stop to any creative writing. I was so upset I didn’t
put a word on paper for days. I would sit for hours with pen in hand staring at the blank page and nothing would happen.

  I thought about how much I loved my mother and what a wonderful relationship we had. I compared my childhood and how my mother raised me with Bonnie’s childhood and my raising of her, to see if there were any major differences.

  When you grow up in an environment where you love your mum and she loves you, I suppose you just automatically think all mothers love their daughters and all daughters return this love. I gave Bonnie all the love I had to give, unconditionally, just as my mum gave to me. I was at a loss when my daughter chose not to love me. This is something I will never come to terms with.

  As I sat at my desk these were the thoughts that invaded my mind, denying all other trains of thought. Seeing I was writing a collection of funny stories about the cooks we had had over the years and recipes, this was not a good state to be in! So I struggled for days trying to get through this mental block and slowly and painfully I pushed the hurt away, not to the back of my mind, but out of it all together, and the writing gradually started to flow.

  I had settled into a good routine and the pages started to form a neat little pile when I got the second phone call from Arthur with a further update. Suddenly I was back to square one, upset and staring at a blank page again. I could see these awful reports on the contents of this developing book would go on all year.

  They not only upset me to the point where I could not write, but filled my life with anguish and stress. Just knowing that this book was going to be eventually printed was enough to make me sick to the stomach, but to receive this ongoing reporting for the whole year was something I knew I could not handle. So after another week or so of complete distress and heartache, I decided I simply would not answer the phone and I turned on the answering machine.