Marg Anderson Special Event

If you’ve lived on Coochiemudlo Island anytime since 1997, I bet you’ve heard of Marg Anderson. Marg is no shrinking violet. During her years on Coochiemudlo, she has worn many hats including event organizer. She’s been at the helm of countless, cultural community events on the island, all her work in this capacity as a volunteer.

What’s driven Marg over the years? Her mind is bright and sharp, ever ready and charged.  She loves music and literature and a drink. If ever there was a plan to raise the bar of cultural experience on the island, she backed it full throttle, she’d be there. Most of them were Marg’s plans, anyway.

She’s lived an interesting life. Well, that’s quite an understatement.

Marg was born in Brisbane in 1944, in a Catholic institution run by the Sisters of Mercy known (somewhat colloquially) as the Wooloowin Home for (Uncontrollable) Girls. She was there till she was 10 months old, with her birth mother, Nola, a spirited and willful 16-year-old who clashed with, and challenged, the nuns. When young Nola went awol from time to time, Sister Madelina was there by baby Marg’s side. Until Marg was adopted out.

Her new parents were a West End couple in their early 40s. Marg was their pride and joy, their only child. The family’s charming home featured beautiful timber work crafted by the hand of her hardworking father, a skilled and respected carpenter/builder. Marg’s mother was a stay-at-home wife. No doubt baby Marg’s arrival gave the couple purpose and potentially more inclusion within the local Catholic parish.

At St Francis Primary School at Dornoch, Marg was immersed in Catholic education including morning mass before school every day, plus on Sundays. Like many working-class Catholic schools of the day, the kids were scheduled into timetables each week to clean the school toilets.

That’s how, when she was 7 years old, Marg contracted Hepatitis B. She was hospitalized for 6 months at the Brisbane Children’s Hospital in Herston (now the Royal Brisbane Children’s and Women’s Hospital). She was injected every day with huge penicillin needles. She nearly died, even received the last rites by the parish priest. But Marg survived.

If this was the first hint of Marg’s strong will, more evidence steadily followed.

Her early years of schooling included piano lessons.  Marg was gifted, showed real promise, but that didn’t stop the nuns from rapping her across the knuckles whenever she played a wrong note. Marg practiced piano for an hour every day, before dinner.

There was no talking around the dinner table. Instead, the family listened to the news, followed by an episode of Blue Hills. On Friday nights, Marg listened to The Adventures of Smoky Dawson which no doubt instilled Marg’s love of country music. Smoky Dawson was ‘Australia’s favourite cowboy’, along with his horse Flash.

Marg sat for two music exams a year. She and completed both AMEB and Trinity College London classical music syllabus, Grades 1–7, passing each with flying colours. Listz was her favourite composer.

She was bright. Her parents enrolled her into All Hallows Girls School in Fortitude Valley, a private Catholic school also run by the Sisters of Mercy. But Marg saw through school’s reputation for academic distinction — she couldn’t be bothered studying, coming third or fourth in class was okay by her. She was fine with her friends coming first in class much to her mother’s annoyance. The annoyance went two ways.

Book cover: ‘Rock ‘n’Roll George Brisbane Legend’ (Queensland Museum Shop)

American magazines, movie stars and music were pure joy. She yearned for a pair of jeans. Her had mother had always chosen Marg’s clothes. Jeans — or anything else American — were not part of her mother’s vision for her daughter. Then one day Marg’s mother caved with a deal. “If you come first in class, you’ll get your jeans.” Marg came first in her class that year. But, interestingly enough, never again.

Life was good. She listened to rock and roll on 4BH radio. She cruised the streets of Brisbane with Rock ‘n’ Roll George — George Kyprios, a Brisbane legend who lived in West End. He drove a 1952 FX Holden and he became a living symbol of Brisbane’s spirit, rhythm, and resilience (Brisbane Times, 30 Nov. 2009). They were neighbours, Marg and George, and he often picked her up from school and took her home.

With an eye for fun-loving men, Marg waved to Yankee marines, young African Americans ready for a good time. They had arrived on a US navy ship docked under Story Bridge, not far from her school. She went dancing with them at the Record Hop (an informal dance event for teenagers in the 1950s). She was in her school uniform, and was sprung. St Hallows was notified and Marg was expelled. She was 14 years old.

Her mother was furious with her.

United States Navy ships under the Story Bridge, Brisbane, 1958.
Kangaroo Point and Districts History Facebook.

Record cover: Record Hop Madness Vol. Four
(Rebound Records)

Marg remained her willful, resilient self. She found work as a secretary and saved enough money to go to New Zealand where she got another typing job, working on a technical book for the government. She had a ball, lived in a share house with young Maoris who loved to party. When her contract with the government wound up, she went fruit picking. She’s never been able to stomach apple cider since.

Marg went back to Australia when she was 22 years old. Her mother died 6 months later. Her father eventually remarried.

A new chapter, another exam sat for and passed, this one giving Marg entry into the Australian public service. She could type 100 words per minute, her fingers agile, fast from years playing piano — clearly, her mind quick and sharp, too. The Department of Foreign Affairs snapped her up and Marg moved to Canberra.

DFA posted her to Hong Kong where she worked from 1970–72, during the Vietnam War. She embraced the work, loved it, soaked in the lifestyle, the rush of the new. She excelled in the work. It was tactical, strategic and secretive. They worked on the release of captured, high-profile Australians: Francis James, an Australian publisher who had been imprisoned in China as a spy; and Kate Webb, an Australian war correspondent with a reputation for dogged and fearless reporting throughout the Vietnam War. Webb had been captured by the People’s Army of Vietnam War.

Her next expat post was London, from 1974–76. There, Marg soaked up the literary scene, immersed herself in book groups, read Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf and others in the Bloomsbury Group. She went to classical music concerts, the Portobello Road markets, drove an MGB. She loved the alternative scene, foot loose and fancy free.

Except an expat’s life can be lonely. Colleagues had become friends, but colleagues would come and go. Time together became 5-minute catchups at airports. Drinking was taking its toll. It was time to go home.

Marg’s next move was to Melbourne. Then, back to Brisbane to look after her ailing father who was widowed, again.

It was during this time that she discovered Coochiemudlo Island and moved there when she was 53 years old, after her father died.