Be that person…

I find myself at the inaugural Fairholme Old Girls’ Association (FOGA) ‘Coming Holme’ dinner during the holidays. Jenny Wynter is the star attraction – a gifted comedian, actor, singer, author and presenter … and a Fairholme Old Girl (1995). She is wooing us, charming us and delighting us – we laugh richly, and we reflect deeply, as we ponder her life and her Fairholme story.

Each Fairholme story is unique – the lived memories of school take different form for each person. But underpinning the gathering was a groundswell of spirit, lingering close to the surface, waiting to pounce. It would not have taken much, for the Jump’n’Jive to be performed or for the previous war cry: Copcha Copcha to be chanted with enthusiasm from the Jenny Sutton/Heather Harrison table.

One thing I remember as a Fairholme girl is enthusiasm. The get up and go, the jump’n’jive and throwing ourselves into everything we did ... that enthusiasm for life and giving all of it a go is something I have held close since leaving Palm Drive. It’s been a lasting gift from my days at Fairholme.

(Jenny Wynter, ‘Coming Holme’ 2024)

It was interesting to be – in research terms – an ‘insider/outsider’ at that event. You can be the College principal for a decade and a half – but you can never really be a Fairholme Old Girl. A shared adolescent journey is special on its own terms – you have to be there, to know it and you have to live it, to share it. That shared common time of troughs and peaks cements friendships and consolidates a sense of who we are. Old girl, and long-time Brisbane FOGA President, Daphne Stewart (1952) used to say that she loved returning to Fairholme. Here, she was, in her words, “Entirely Daphne.” She wasn’t a mother, wife or grandmother and she luxuriated in stepping back to a time of simply being Daphne. You could see and feel those moments at the FOGA dinner.

When Jenny recounted a dramatic presentation that took place in the College pool – resplendent with a full-sized boat, appalling acoustics and a Spring Fair audience – she said, “It could only happen at Fairholme.” Most probably so. She said that her acting career was born at Fairholme – where her Holme Group teacher, and Geography teaching legend, Mrs Patricia (Pat) Sulewski allowed her to perform skits for the group – there were boundaries for what could or couldn’t be shared, and when Jenny crossed the content line, Mrs Sulewski would bring her back, gently. Here, in this safe place of learning, she was cultivating and growing Jenny’s confidence and courage. It’s been almost three decades since Jenny left Fairholme, yet her Sunday mission before returning home to Brisbane was to catch up with Mrs Sulewski. I’m not sure if she managed – but the drive was there, as was the deep need to say thank you to the teacher who had nurtured her self-belief, perhaps unwittingly but with the intuitive understanding some people hold. Be that person.

There is nothing easy about a career in the Arts – underfunded, seasonal, fickle – there are no guarantees. There is nothing easy about being Head Girl and Dux of your year and pursuing the road less travelled, the road least expected and the road without a linear means of reaching one’s destination. Because we are all consciously and unconsciously writing scripts and manufacturing endings for our children and our students. We are imagining their futures, sometimes without consultation; sometimes without listening for the whisperings and nuances of their passions. It takes courage to depart from the script, improvisation is its own skill. Jenny has this abundantly: metaphorically and literally. It is a talent founded on wit and intelligence and daring. As an audience we were enriched through this, every minute of her performance: the gift of theatre, “theatre [that] was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation” (Stella Adler).

When your father tells you to become an engineer and your mother is batting for you to pursue something medical – and you like neither, where do you turn? When the script has been written with such precision, love and good intent, can you resist the words and the stage directions that have almost become who you are, or at least who you will become? I don’t know the answer, although I do know, if I am honest, that I have penned a fair few scripts for my own children, written in indelible ink. They haven’t been closely observed, or at times, even recognised as in existence and I have been forced to confront new and unfamiliar texts, ones that I haven’t authored: not easy. I have had to come back to truisms like – “You cannot live someone else’s life for them” or “You cannot build a bridge with borrowed bricks.”

Reunions are interesting phenomenon. At times we embrace them, at other times we avoid them – not wanting to remember who we were, wanting to place distance and time between our adolescent and adult selves. But there are few things as uplifting as seeing past students sitting at tables together lost in the deeps of reminiscing, revelling in one another’s company and the power of remembrance. Jenny observed the next day, “This has been so special, it’s warmed my heart. I will hold on to this.”

And I will hold on to her reference to Mrs Sulewski too – so much more than a Geography teacher. She was a person who grew self-belief. Sometimes, such a person is all we need to launch our lives – one person who believes in us unconditionally, one person who refuses to write a rigid script, a person who knows, intuitively, that you cannot live someone else’s life for them. Wherever you can, whenever you can and in whatever way you can: be that person.

Dr Linda Evans | Principal