FINDING YOUR BIRTH MOTHER – TEN DOORS DOWN

The Hon Robert Tickner grew up on the New South Wales mid-north coast and became an Aboriginal Legal Service lawyer and an alderman of the Sydney City Council. In 1984 he won the federal seat of Hughes, and in 1990 he became the federal minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. He is Australia’s longest-serving minister in that role. He then became CEO of Australian Red Cross and led the organisation for a decade from 2005 to 2015. In 2020, Robert Tickner published Ten doors down: the story of an extraordinary adoption reunion – his remarkable story of discovering his birth mother had lived just ten doors from a house he stayed in much of his childhood. On 15 April, Robert Tickner recorded a talk at The Sydney Institute for Youtube about his book followed by a discussion with Gerard Henderson. Both the talk and the transcript of the discussion are published here.

FINDING YOUR BIRTH MOTHER – TEN DOORS DOWN

ROBERT TICKNER

Thank you Gerard. I’m very honoured to be talking to Sydney Institute followers and the public. We are, of course, working under very difficult circumstances with the virus but in the best traditions the show must go.

My book Ten Doors Down is something quite different. It’s essentially a book that is focused very much on my adoption reunion. Having grown up as a country boy, as Gerard said, on the north coast of New South Wales in Forster, I always grew up knowing I was adopted, and always completely accepting, comfortable and happy with that. But life unfolds and it was really after I became a federal member of parliament and my son Jack was born in 1992 when I looked down on this little baby and realised that this person in front of me was the first person on the planet that I knew I was directly biologically connected to. And I always thought, and I still do believe, that life’s outcomes are shaped to a very huge degree by nurture more so than nature. I think your life opportunities, your living circumstances, those social determinants that we all agree play such a large and important role in shaping our life outcomes, are still the dominant force.

But you can’t escape the fact when you look down for the first time at your child, your baby child, that with a sudden realisation and thump in the chest, there’s something else hugely important in life. It was because of that enormous warmth, intensity of emotion and appreciation of these things that I lifted the contact veto that had prevented contact between me and any part of my original birth family that was out there.

I had no knowledge of my birth family. I only knew one family. My father Bert Tickner was a successful business person on the north coast of New South Wales. He pioneered and essentially built the Sunliner fibreglass caravans, those rounded fiberglass caravans from the 1950s and 1960s, that are still on the roads today. He ran a very successful motor business in Taree as well as the caravan factory in Forster. My mum was a beautiful, loving person. I’d grown up in a very privileged way, not so much because I had a particularly affluent life. My parents were quite disciplined and modest. But I grew up surrounded and supported so much with the love and commitment of my mum and dad, Gwen and Bert Tickner.

But I did lift that contact veto which had prevented contact with my birth family in very late 1992. And it wasn’t long after that when I was contacted by the state Community Services Department. New South Wales, with cross-party support, allowed adopted people and their birth families to establish contact provided it was consented to by both parties. That was done by the intermediary services with the Department of Community Services. And I must say it was a very beautiful process. People often dismiss the public service and the public sector. But certainly in this case it was professionally and expertly done. It was a service delivered, as I’ve said in other places, with love and a real sensitivity.

When I lifted this contact veto I was contacted within a matter of weeks and told that my mother was still alive, that she had also lifted the contact veto, she did not want to prevent contact but rather to have it managed. And so, a few weeks later, just after Christmas of 1992, I received the first communication. It was a very short letter from my mother and a photograph which, coincidentally, was taken in Ash Street in Sydney which many people would know was the historic headquarters of the Liberal Party and a place where I had once visited when I was a member of the Sydney University Liberal Club. But that’s another story even though it’s mentioned in the book.

When I got this first photo you can imagine the way in which I had to respond. I’d been told that I had to write to my mother to tell her things about my life. And this is where these extraordinary, powerful, almost unbelievable coincidences came to light. As I was writing back to my mother, my birth mother, whose name I didn’t really fully appreciate, I didn’t know where she lived. And I thought though that enclosing photographs of my life growing up in Forster would be very valuable. So purely by random selection I chose two photos which when my birth mother eventually got these photos, really almost tipped her over the edge. Because the first photo I enclosed was me on the verandah of my grandmother’s house, of course my adopted grandmother, that’s all they ever knew, at 18 Lansdowne Street in Merrylands. And when my mother eventually got my letter she was living 10 doors down, as the title of the book suggests, at 38 Lansdowne Street, Merrylands and had lived there since 1957. Now I visited that house at number 18 almost every school holidays since I was a tiny baby until when I was 12 or 13 years old when my grandmother passed away and my aunty who also lived in the same street also moved on to Queensland. So you can imagine my mother had this sudden realisation that her child that she had never known had been a heartbeat away, ten doors away, from she was actually living.

Now this is where the story becomes even more coincidental and I’ll take you to the next letter, part of the letter, I enclosed in a moment. But let me just make the point now that the realisation I had as this adoption reunion unfolded was that although I had had a privileged life, my relinquishing mother who had gone through this adoption process had not had a very good life in so many ways. She had grieved for the loss of her child. Grieved is an understatement. For all her adult life since she gave birth to me.

Having grown up in Orange in central west New South Wales, I was born in Sydney in Crown Street Hospital when my mother was 23. My mother had grieved for the loss of me as her child pretty much every day of her life in one form or another. It had just dominated so much of her life. And although she went on to have a successful life in a couple of respects, significant respects, with a wonderful loving husband that she married, Greg Kerwin, who was a very committed person of faith, a very deeply believing Catholic who provided tremendous support to my mother, my mother could never have children because of the grief that she had experienced through the adoption. This is seemingly irrational but from her perspective it is a very understandable and deep continuing grief about the loss of a child, and fearing that it would happen again.

So, back to Forster. I wrote to her for the first time. One photograph is of this house ten doors down. The next photograph I chose appears to be an innocuous photograph of me with a Santa Claus and it’s clearly identified as being in 1955. I knew where that photo was taken because my mother Gwen, my adopted mum, my adopted mother Gwen had told me many times it was in Parramatta at David Jones. I thought it was a nice photo of me as a child and enclosed it in a letter to my birth mother with the other photograph I’ve earlier spoken about. But when my mother saw this photograph, this second photograph, she had a chilling realisation that the photograph was almost identical to one she had. She rushed to her photograph album and found a photograph of her twin sister’s son with the same Santa in exactly the same year, 1955, taken at exactly the same place. My mother had worked for Parramatta City Council for 28 years directly opposite where this photograph was taken. And my mother had been there with her twin sister when the photograph of my cousin was taken as a little boy with that same Santa.

So you can imagine being a person who grieved for so long, to have realised the connections that occurred, was just devastating for her. And it took an enormous amount of work by the Department of Community Services and I guess, you know, love from me which eventually came in bucketfuls to her, to kind of bring her back to confidence that this was going to work out.

But the actual reunion with my mother happened at a Sydney icon just down the road from The Sydney Institute on the Opera House steps. And I tell, I think, a good story, a very truthful story, as the book is, about meeting my birth mother and the incredible majesty of the moment of meeting her on the Opera House steps. What then happened to me was that I had a wonderful time with my mother for 20 years before she died in 2012. But I always say when I’m telling the story of this adoption reunion and this is my story, it’s not a political book of course, I do weave in some of the things that occurred in my public life but it’s not really a book at all, certainly not about party politics, or even politics generally.

But it is a book about Australian history, in part in what happened to women during that period. My story of reunion is one of amazing success, wonderful family reunions and connection and love of family. But it’s not the story that most adopted people experience. You know, the statistics are pretty raw and pretty tough, that many adopted children did not meet their birth mother. The birth mother who is trying to meet a child is often rejected and vice versa. You know, these lives have been complicated, in some cases incredibly challenging and sad for people on both sides. Even fewer people go on to meet their birth fathers and even fewer still meet their siblings if they have any.

In my case I met my birth father some eighteen months later and that’s quite a story because my mother wanted me to wait before I met him. I think that was really important for her because she needed to be empowered. The last thing I would have done would be run off to try and seek him out until I was sure that she was okay about that and that she was managing and working through and loving the relationship that we had together. And trusted me that nothing I would do would ever interfere with her. But she gave me that permission to meet my birth father and I did meet him. Again it was another Sydney icon that I chose to meet on, Pyrmont Bridge. When I was a Sydney City councillor in my twenties I fought a campaign with others to retain that bridge, as a great part of Sydney history. And I thought it was a nice omen that I could actually meet my birth father on that bridge. He’s a wonderful man. His name is Len. He’s 92 years old. We have the most beautiful tender relationship. He’s a very thoughtful, gentle man. The whole nature-nurture argument is canvassed in my book. I talk about, you know, my birth father being such a kindred soul but the personas of my birth father and my adopted dad were quite different and the same for my birth mother and my adopted mother. So trying to work through what is the manifestation of nature or nurture in my own life is very difficult, as it is for all of us. I guess I come to the conclusion that we’re pretty much a mixture of all those things.

There are many things I can say. I just want to end by saying I also have a wonderful relationship with two sisters, two brothers. They form a wonderful part of my life. This whole reunion has given me incredible appreciation and depth of understanding and love of family. You know, no one could have been more privileged than to have gone through this wonderful reunion that I have.

I also want to pay tribute to my birth family, my stepdad who was married to my mother is no longer alive but he became a huge part of my life and I helped support him well into his 90s before he eventually passed away and we were incredibly close. And on my father’s side, my stepmother was a very important part of my life as well. And I needed to make sure before I published this book that my birth family, in fact all my family, was comfortable with the writing of the book. And to be frank if they had said that it was going to jeopardise our family or damage our family in any way I wouldn’t have published the book. But they didn’t say that. They embraced it. They were proud of it. They loved the story and without that support from them I wouldn’t have been able to do this project. So a very special thanks to them.

I’m glad The Sydney Institute’s taking an interest in the book. It’s a story that’s about family, about love of family. It’s quite a riveting tale. I can almost say with great confidence it’ll make you laugh. It’ll certainly make you cry. But it’s not a sad story. It’s a powerful and uplifting story. It’s called Ten Doors Down. It’s the story of an extraordinary adoption reunion and I hope you enjoyed it very much. Thanks so much.

FINDING YOUR BIRTH MOTHER – TEN DOORS DOWN – DISCUSSION – ROBERT TICKNER & GERARD HENDERSON

Gerard Henderson: Well Robert thanks for that. It’s a beautifully written book. I read it in two sittings, and I enjoyed it. But I’ve got some queries about it. First, you’ve told us your story, your personal story with your parents and you finding your birth mother and then your birth father. Now tell us a bit about yourself, because you’re a significant figure in Australian political history. I know a bit about you. I think we first met fleetingly during the Hawke government years in the mid-1980s. So, what were the political influences on you, your political heritage. I think your father Bert was a member of the National Party?

Robert Tickner: He was.

Gerard Henderson: And when you found your birth mother, she turned out to be a life-long Liberal Party voter?

Robert Tickner: Absolutely.

Gerard Henderson: Then you left home and went on to Sydney University. And you rock up to St Paul’s Anglican College, where we’re not sure if anyone there still believes in the resurrection but they’re still Anglicans. You join the University of Sydney Liberal Club. So, how did you end up on the left of the Labor Party?

Robert Tickner: Well I guess I should say to begin with this isn’t a book about politics. I do weave some of such things in just to give context and to flesh out aspects of myself as a person. But it’s very straightforward. I’ve always had, for better or for worse, this compassion thing. I’ve always hated to see people hurting. And it starts as simple as that, you know.

I grew up in a country town, I was taught to have respect for everybody. There was poverty in the town I grew up in whereas I grew up in a fairly comfortable household. I certainly grew up with very egalitarian instincts going to the local primary school five doors away from my house, and we were friends with everyone. My dad was a card-carrying member of the National Party and he resigned because it was too left-wing for him. I’m not kidding.

I always knew I had an interest in public life, including in my teens. I didn’t have politics thrust down my throat at home. But, certainly, I knew what side of the fence my father voted from. I came to Sydney with no family I could stay with. I ended up in St Paul’s College because I had a school teacher Mrs Willis whose sons had gone there. One I think became a high-ranking Australian diplomat and the other a distinguished scholar. I got a bit of a shock at St Pauls because I’d never mixed with people that weren’t the open, warm and friendly sort I had grown up with. I hadn’t gone to a wealthy school. I just didn’t feel welcomed at the college. Patrick McGorry, who is well known to people, was also there at the time and we’ve reminisced a bit about it. He can speak for himself. But I found it a very difficult time.

I did join the Liberal Club because I was interested in public life. Through that I met various people. I remember Andrew Peacock was around, and Don Chipp was in the Liberal Party at that time. It was a seminal moment to actually meet Malcolm Fraser – as I’ve told my good friend Phoebe, his daughter, who has become a good friend and whom I used to work with. I met Malcolm Fraser in the Ash Street headquarters of the Liberal Party. He seemed so aloof, so distant and arrogant, you know. And I just was turned away. I thought, this is not my home. Maybe in hindsight it was a judgement made for perhaps the wrong reasons but as a 20-year old, as I was then, these things do impact on you. I was very interested in education and caught up with people, many people, in my generation as the Whitlam Government came along. So, my very first vote was for the Labor Party in the 1972 election.

Gerard Henderson: So, you don’t just find compassion in the Labor Party or the Greens? Because it comes out very clearly in your book that your birth mother, who voted Liberal all her life, was a very compassionate person.

Robert Tickner: Yes

Gerard Henderson: So that’s not the only driver, is it?

Robert Tickner: Of course, I evolved. We’re talking about when I was 18,19, 20 years of age. We all evolve. I really believe, with every fabric of my being, that we have to bring out the best in people, we have to look for good in the world and we have to try and do a better job in Australia. And other countries as well. We need to take some of the deep acrimony of politics, the war zone, the bear pits that sometimes are used to describe our Parliament and try to find some common ground around big issues of public policy. People of good will can have disagreements they can find common ground without either side sacrificing their fundamental principles.

Most of my life, I also operated in that hothouse atmosphere of the parliament. But I tried to find common ground with those on the other side. On the Public Accounts Committee, which I chaired, all reports were unanimous. Bronwyn Bishop and I did the seminal report for the Auditor General when John Hewson was also a member of that committee. In chairing the Parliamentary Group of Amnesty International, I worked with both sides of the parliament. In getting the reconciliation process adopted by the parliament I got it unanimously supported by working with Michael Wooldridge and John Hewson.

There are times when you can’t reach agreement but there are areas such as prison reform, as we’re seeing in the United States, where sides can come together. The justice reform initiative, which is not yet public but will be before too long, seeks to try and generate bipartisan or cross-party re-examination of our current prison system. And whether or not there are evidence-based alternatives, as is being shown in the United States with Republicans and Democrats trying to break that recidivism. These are just examples, but I am a very different person to what I was as a 20-year old as we all are.

Gerard Henderson: So your first vote was for Gough Whitlam. You become disillusioned with Malcolm Fraser. As you know, Fraser became Prime Minister because Whitlam was dismissed by the Governor General Sir John Kerr. In early 1976, not long after the Dismissal, as a young lawyer, you were involved in a walk out where Sir John Kerr is giving an important address to a lot of legal dignitaries. A lot of people walked out. You walked out. I’m not sure whether you looked around as you were walking out and noted that one of the people walking out with you was Professor David Flint.

Robert Tickner: (laughs) Yes, I know. He’s quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Gerard Henderson: So, a lot of people change.

Robert Tickner: I worked with David Flint in those years. But this book is not a book about politics.

My motive in writing the book was clearly not about money. I did it because it is important to remind people about what adoption practices were. I’m very positive about my own adoption. But there were some terrible things that happened in those practices. I also thought that some of the anecdotes and references to people would appeal to people like us have shifted their thinking and matured and so on. That’s a good thing.

Gerard Henderson: You’re an important political player.

Robert Tickner: I didn’t say that.

Gerard Henderson: I did. It’s significant. You have to look at where you ended up.

Robert Tickner: Yeah.

Gerard Henderson: I’ll come back to a bit of the politics later. Going back to your mother. You made the point, to your birth mother, that your birth father’s family was quite happy with the book and that involves your two sisters and two brothers and your birth father. On the other side of the family, your mother had no children beyond you.

Robert Tickner: Correct.

Gerard Henderson: Your birth mother comes out in the book as a very fine woman, a very hard working, lower middle class – as it would have been called in those days – woman, who in many ways represents the basis of which much of Australia was built.

Robert Tickner: Sure.

Gerard Henderson: But she also comes out as a very private woman.

Robert Tickner: Extremely.

Gerard Henderson: I know she’s dead, but do you think she would have been happy with these revelations?

Robert Tickner: That’s the biggest ethical question I faced and I did obviously debate long and hard about this. My mother was extremely private. She told very few people about the adoption. I tell the story of Bishop Brennan, a very prominent Australian Catholic bishop, whom I met in my work as minister for Aboriginal affairs. I told him the story of my adoption and, coincidentally, his sister lived three houses away from my mother. Yet, she knew nothing about the adoption.

Ultimately, took the view that I had fulfilled my mother’s wishes to maintain the privacy of this story throughout all the time that I knew her till she went to her grave and while Greg her husband was still alive. But with her passing, I considered that my commitments had been fulfilled and the story was now mine. I had a life too. I thought that in writing this book I could also pay an enormous tribute to my mother, to her integrity, to her character, to her as a woman. And I’ve done that. So, I’m very comfortable that I did it. But you are right to ask the question because it was a huge issue for me.

Gerard Henderson: There are photographs of your mother in the book. You’ve got some great photographs, including you on a surfboard.

Robert Tickner: I said to someone the other day, you know that’s a sheer indulgence to put that in but it’s my book so I did it.

Gerard Henderson: I noticed that. I marked that as self indulgent. On the left of one page there is your adopting your mother, on the right of the page a photograph of your birth mother. She’s a beautiful young woman in her mid-20s.

Robert Tickner: That’s right.

Gerard Henderson: It is not surprising that she didn’t speak to you about the circumstances of your conception. But it probably is surprising she didn’t speak to you about the circumstances of your birth. You know very little about that don’t you?

Robert Tickner: It’s answered in one word, really, it’s grief. You know. The shame, the grief is why she never spoke of that. It was an enormous pain to her to talk about these issues. She had been back to the hospital. It was still very much in her mind, the hospital, in a sense of getting the original birth records. Various things were alluded to but my mother was extremely distressed whenever we talked of that time in her life. And it would have been wrong of me to push it, to cause her grief. As for the circumstances of her relationship with my birth father, I considered that to be absolutely their business. I was born, that’s all I needed to know. My birth father held me in the hospital which for that time was extraordinary.

Gerard Henderson: Well that was most unusual because normally the fathers weren’t around. But he has not spoken too much about it either has he?

Robert Tickner: He hasn’t and I haven’t asked. I have a wonderful relationship with his wife Lola. I don’t call her my stepmother. She’s been magnificent. To have someone come into her life, another sibling for her very adult children, my brothers and my sisters and to welcome me is just so generous and so wise. Lola has explained to me that she had adoption in her own family, in her wider family, and she understood a little about it. The strength of their marriage, Lola and my father Len, is amazing. They just celebrated 60 wonderful years together.

Gerard Henderson: Pretty impressive. So, tell us about your father and your mother who brought you up, Bert and Gwen. You’re a bit critical of your father’s attitude to Indigenous Australians. But apart from that they both come out as very good parents.

Robert Tickner: Wonderful

Gerard Henderson: Wonderful parents. You were very lucky weren’t you?

Robert Tickner: I was extremely lucky and that’s the point. There have been very significant studies done of the lives of adopted people and of mothers who have given up children for adoption. And, particularly for the mothers, there are very significant mental health issues. Around 50 per cent of people involved are affected. In the case of children who have been adopted, there are similar and very complex outcomes. At a recent forum, I met a number of mothers who gave up children for adoption and people who were searching for their birth parents. I realised, even more powerfully, how my own experience is not typical of the reunion experience of most people.

In talking about my own experience, I do make it clear that I’m not an expert but some things I did learn. One lesson was that these things should not be rushed. I had wonderful guidance from the Department of Community Services that helped me reflect and understand what my mother had been through. It was so different from my life. And it took me a long time to appreciate the depth of her pain. I had challenges to work through. You are right to raise these matters because they’re very ethical questions.

I had to think whether, as I told my birth mother Maida about growing up and good stories about my life, was I causing her pain? Was I reminding her of all that she didn’t have? In her case, quite remarkably, she wasn’t impacted by that. When we went to Forster, she really valued that experience. She did not want to meet my birth mother Gwen, who was then in aged care and going through the early stages of dementia. And that in itself was another big ethical question. Should they meet? My mother said, no this is not right. She was absolutely right and they didn’t meet.

For my birth mother, my telling her of the good times about growing up was just fine because, unbeknownst to me, she got a photo of my adopted mum and dad, Gwen and Bert, who are my mum and dad forever, and she quietly put that on her mantelpiece at her home in Merrylands. She put them on a pedestal in her own mind that they had been so wonderful to me. And when Gwen eventually did pass away, my mother Maida came to the funeral which I thought was just wonderful.

Gerard Henderson: As you point out in the book, you made the approach to your birth mother. When I first came to Sydney in the mid 1980s, the issue was, as you point out in your book, that was being discussed was how government should respond to the problem of adoption. I then knew a young man, younger than me, who had been adopted and who was absolutely emphatically determined that he didn’t want his birth mother or his birth father to contact him. And he was resolute that this legislation shouldn’t go through. Now obviously you didn’t feel that at all.

Robert Tickner: Well I did

Gerard Henderson: You did?

Robert Tickner: Yes I did. I had such loyalty to my mum and dad, Gwen and Bert Tickner, that I lodged a contact veto and I was adamant.

Gerard Henderson: Oh that’s right.

Robert Tickner: Dad was no longer alive at that time but my mother Gwen had never tried to persuade me or never raised the issue or never expressed concern about any attempt to meet my birth mother. It was this intuitive feeling on my part that it might cause pain. My abiding love and loyalty to my mother meant that I would never cause her any pain. That prevented me from taking any steps. And I lodged a contact veto.

Of course, the crazy thing was that when I lifted the contact veto and met my birth mother I had this other moral tsunami of realisation that I had not done anything for some years while my mother had been continuing to grieve. So, this is a whole minefield of ethical questions and challenges to which there is not one true path. You’ve got to work your way through these as the issues come up to you. But you’ve raised good questions.

Gerard Henderson: You have talked about your intuitive feelings. Towards the end of your book, as I recall, you described yourself as a soft person. Those of us who’ve been around you in politics always thought that you were a very decent politician but you’re also a pretty tough guy. You’re in the left of the Labor Party.

Robert Tickner: That was 24 years ago.

Gerard Henderson: You were a minister, eventually, in the Hawke Government, you were a minister in the Keating government. They’re pretty tough guys and you’ve got to deal with them. You’re a pretty tough guy. I mean, at a relatively young age, you had a disagreement with Prime Minister Bob Hawke. That’s in your book. Most people have had disagreements with Paul Keating. So, you might be a soft personality but you’re a pretty tough political operator.

Robert Tickner: Obviously everyone does things that they’re not happy with in their life. But my path was the one that allowed me to do the best that I could to work with people of good will, to try and make Australia a better place in the areas where I could in my own very limited way. Sometimes in public life you need great courage and you have to put yourself on the tracks, with that steam roller coming down towards you, and be strong. Tom Uren, former Labor Party parliamentarian and prisoner of war, was someone who influenced me a lot and helped me find greater strength and preparedness to take a stand. For someone you might think has been, at various times in their life, deeply engaged with the media, I’m also an incredibly private person. I realised, though, that sometimes you had to take a stand on issues that you believe in. I have no regrets about that. It’s not something that necessarily comes easy to me. But you’re right. You’ve got to be strong.

Gerard Henderson: Tom Uren became a bit of a mentor to you?

Robert Tickner: In a funny sort of way. We were so different. In a very different age group and very different in so many ways. He was someone I got to know soulfully as a human being. If he were here beside me I would say he had an ego that you couldn’t jump over, you know. But you need a bit of an ego in public life.

Gerard Henderson: He was a pretty tough guy. I remember he had been an Australian heavyweight boxing champion, or if he wasn’t the champion he was close to it?

Robert Tickner: He fought in Darwin I think.

Gerard Henderson: He was tall for his generation. I remember former Labor leader Bill Hayden telling me that he was completely intimidated by Tom Uren.

Robert Tickner: That’s the irony, isn’t it?

Gerard Henderson: And he was always intimidating people at the same time as he was telling people how we should all love one another. You got so intimidated by Tom that you had to love someone.

Robert Tickner: In knowing him all those years was also reflective of what he was like as a human being on a personal level. Sure he was tough. He would have mannerisms that were different to mine. But, you know, and there’s many people I’ve admired on both sides of politics. Tom did become someone I knew very well and deeply admired. His love of people was extraordinary and that was not concocted. His love of people was profound and was his great driver. And I hope it’s mine. I believe it is.

Gerard Henderson: We’re getting close to the end now. You seem to have a sentimental streak which I can understand. You lost your seat of Hughes in 1996 which is not surprising because there was a big swing against Labor and a lot of seats were lost. And that seat has changed and has been in the Liberal Party’s hands ever since. But your loss profoundly affected you. You spent a lot of money on your electorate and you didn’t have a lot of money. You were out of work for a couple of years with no great income coming in. But you and your staff found it very hard to drive past your old office because it reminded you of what you had lost. Most people wouldn’t think too much about driving past an office.

Robert Tickner: I left the parliament that I had joined as an idealist. People can misinterpret that word, but I believed in the institution of parliament, and had a great love of the parliament. On the walls here, at The Sydney Institute, you have lovely photos of the old Parliament House. What a privilege it was to have worked and served in that building. I do love the institution of the parliament and I do love the committee system. But we have to keep evolving the parliament as a democratic institution.

My book also seeks to paint some of the human side of being a parliamentarian. There are so many members of parliament, on both sides of the fence, who are devoted to their electorates. It’s not just in getting elected but actually living the life. That’s what we tried to do as a local federal member for Hughes. I tried to make my seat like a country electorate, to be everywhere for people. My home phone number was available publicly to my entire electorate. I’d written a letter to my electorate and publicised my number and so few people abused that. Most people are good, you know, and respectful. But people did use it in an emergency.

In losing the seat, the grief was about feeling rejection. After all we had done. But it is something you get over with time. That’s another big theme of my beliefs that you do have to reinvent yourself as a person. For John Howard, it must have been a very painful thing to lose Bennelong.

Gerard Henderson: Howard found out, as well, you can be a good local member and you can lose. If the swing is against you and you’ve got a marginal seat or a near marginal seat, you will go. So finally, you felt sentimental about driving past your old office. Do you ever drive past Crown Street Hospital?

Robert Tickner: Well of course. I know it well. When I was a Sydney city councillor back in my 20s, the area I represented literally abutted that hospital. But, for me, it did not have the scars and torment that it had for my mother. She was still scarred by it at the end of her days.

My mother was a spirited woman, an intelligent woman, an engaging person in her community, in Clean Up Australia and all sorts of other local things. She found a devoted husband in Greg. They travelled well. They had a good life. But they were modest people. But I want to leave with the message that my mother was my real hero in having lived through all these challenges while still sustaining herself. And, ultimately, we had this wonderful reunion for which I am forever grateful.

Gerard Henderson: I think that is a very fair summary of your mother. Just before I say thank you formally, it’s interesting reading the book, where you describe your mother as modest. She would have had not much education I guess beyond the age of about 15, something like that. But she writes beautifully. The letters you quote here are beautifully written letters and it says a lot for our educational standards in those days that people of that generation, who left school relatively early, could write so well. And even today it’s a very modern form of writing. There are quite a number of long bits you quote from the letters and they’re just wonderfully written. You should be very proud of your mother.

Robert Tickner: Thank you. Both my mothers.

Gerard Henderson: And your father. And your other two fathers. And your book Ten Doors Down. Good luck with it.

Robert Tickner: Thank you Gerard.