Chapter 16

PART FOUR – All Our Own

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Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place1 ‘There’s something different about country people. There’s a degree of hospitality, generosity of spirit, self-effacement, very fine values and principles. That’s what shaped my life, through my parents.’2 Quentin Bryce grew up in the country, the bush, in real Australia. That central fact did indeed shape her life and it has influenced everything she has done since then. One of her first and proudest activities following her appointment as Queensland’s twenty fourth governor was to return to the place where she was made, Ilfracombe, a tiny town in the centre of Queensland.

She is not going to forget where she came from. ‘So many Australians now living in the cities have their roots in the bush, as I do. So many of us who now live comfortable and prosperous lives in the cities got our start in life because of the things we gained from the bush, personal qualities more than anything financial. I think it is really important that all Australians should remember and acknowledge the contribution that the bush has made to this nation’s human capital. I think modern Australians should honour an obligation to learn about and reconnect with whatever part of this land it was that gave them their start, their impetus in life. For me, it was Ilfracombe.’ 3

Left: Governor Quentin Bryce – 'A lot of the things I do best I do quietly.'

Below: View to the town of Ilfracombe from the roof of the woolscour – an almost horizontal landscape.

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The Ilfracombe district sits astride the Tropic of Capricorn, about 650 kilometres west of the central Queensland coast. It’s a very Australian locality where an almost horizontal landscape slopes gently toward the continent’s far interior. One hundred million years ago the land surface was the bed of an inland sea. Since then, watercourses have eroded and sculpted the land to leave grey brown soils on which grow a mantle of grasses and trees lining the ephemeral watercourses that flow seldom and slowly toward Lake Eyre. Far below the land surface lies the Great Artesian Basin.

From the 1860s, ambitious sheepmen claimed these grasslands and a little later they tapped the artesian basin. In 1891, the Central Queensland Railway from Rockhampton reached the district, on its way to an eventual terminus at Longreach. The town of Ilfracombe sprang into life with all the alacrity of a gold rush settlement. For many years, a small community of people had been moving west with the new railway line, from each new railhead to the next as the line progressed. They were looking for places to settle down, places that might offer opportunities. Ilfracombe was a place that promised chances for teamsters. The new town was strategically placed as the railhead for the vast and productive sheep stations to the north and south of the new town. There would be work for the teamster’s wagons, bringing wool from the stations to the railhead and carrying stores and supplies on their outward journeys.

Some of the teamsters chose to settle at Ilfracombe and so did business people who thought that the place showed signs of having a future. In 1898, a far-sighted bush entrepreneur, Colin Bertram, opened a wool scour on the edge of the town. Bertram knew that Ilfracombe was at the centre of one of Australia’s most productive wool-growing regions and he thought that the local artesian water had chemical qualities ideal for scouring wool. He was right. Before long ‘Ilfracombe scoureds’ were regularly topping wool sales in Australia and Britain.

In 1922 or thereabouts, Norman Strachan came to manage the Ilfracombe scour. Norman was born at Austinmer, near Wollongong, in 1899. He was one of six children of Cornelius (Neil) Strachan and his wife Sophie, née McCauley. Cornelius was a master mine carpenter who had come out from Scotland in 1887 to make framing and other timber works for the mines around Wollongong. The Strachan family had originally lived near the town

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Above left: Established in 1898, the Ilfracombe scour processed wool that often topped the sales in Australia and Britain.

Above centre: Its a long way to Yarralumla – Ilfracombe's main street in 1949, about the time the Strachan family left the district.

Above right: Norman and Naida Strachan at the races in western Queensland.

Below right: Quentin Strachan as a child.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

of Strachan, near Aberdeen in Scotland’s north-east. Sophie was from a family that had arrived in New South Wales in 1837.

Norman went to school locally and then, briefly, to the Wollongong high school. A career in one of the local coal mines seemed inevitable, but his parents were desperately keen for him to avoid that. That he did not become a miner was due to an amazing stroke of luck. Norman was a keen surfer and captain of the Austinmer surf club. One day he rescued a child from the surf. The child’s grateful family, the Whiddons, offered Norman a job in their Botany Woollen Mills and promised to train him in wool technology and the management of wool processing operations.4 At the Botany Woollen Mills in Sydney, Norman gained the knowledge and experience that equipped him to manage the Ilfracombe scour. It was a responsible and demanding job. The scour employed about 40 men and often worked three shifts. Local workers looked to the scour for job security while graziers expected that the scour would process their wool so it could be presented on markets to the very best advantage. Norman did well at Ilfracombe in the 1920s and he was then transferred to north west Queensland to manage other wool scours owned by the same company.5 In 1935, Norman was in Winton when he met Naida Wetzel. Naida was from Brisbane but she was working as a schoolteacher in Winton. Her father, Edward Wetzel, had migrated from Germany and had become curator of the Spring Hill swimming baths in Brisbane in about 1913. By an amazing coincidence, Edward Wetzel and his son William (Naida’s brother) were both keen lifesavers, as was Norman. On Easter Sunday 1934, William was hailed as a hero when he rescued three people from dangerous surf at Burleigh Heads.6 Naida’s mother Alice, née Francis, was from an English family that had migrated to Rockhampton.

Naida attended All Hallows school and then went to Teachers Training College before going out to Winton. She was a slender and graceful woman, always elegant, always determined. Norman and Naida were married in 1936 and lived first at the Carrar wool scour in north-west Queensland. In 1940 they moved to Ilfracombe, where Norman was again to take over as manager of the wool scour. By then, its wool was a strategic war material and so was the lanolin by-product of the scouring process. The Ilfracombe scour was busier than ever and its employees were reserved from war service because of the national importance of their work.

Norman and Naida came to Ilfracombe with their small daughter Diane, who was born in 1937. They had lost a son, Neil, when he was four months old but they were compensated when daughters Quentin (1942), Revelyn (1944) and Helene (1947) were born in years to come.7 For almost ten years, the Strachan family lived in the manager’s house near the wool scour and on the outskirts of Ilfracombe. Norman made a strong contribution to the local community, as manager of the town’s biggest employer and as a citizen. He was a councillor of the Ilfracombe Shire and in that capacity he began moves to secure modern amenities for townspeople, including reticulated water and electricity. Naida taught her children herself and created a home that became a focus for many people living in more outlying parts of the district.

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‘We lived in a lovely house at the scour,’ Diane Craddock, Quentin's sister, recalls. ‘It had a beautiful garden and there was an ant bed tennis court and a lily pond that we all stood in when it was really hot, which was quite often.

Quentin had a knee problem as a child and she had to wear quite heavy leg braces but they seem to have solved the problem because there is no trace of it now. But I do think that the experience left Quentin with a particular sympathy for people who have disabilities.’

David Dawes was born in 1941 and grew up near Ilfracombe at the same time as Quentin Strachan. He recalled,8 ‘As a child I lived on a small sheep station outside the town. I do remember that my parents and other people on stations in the district used to make the Strachan’s home something of a social headquarters. Being on the edge of the town it was central for the whole district.

The Strachans were very hospitable and people used to gather at their place.

Everyone would bring food and people would hop in to help with the work that the hospitality required. There were a lot of children about our age and the young ones used to play games and amuse themselves while the older people played tennis.

‘I can recall that during the war years and for a few years afterwards the entertainment wasn’t very lavish, everything was home made and there was very little alcohol served, if there was any it was kept out of sight of the children.

However, everyone managed to have a wonderful time. There were so many common interests. A woollen thread bound everyone together, the people from the stations round about were woolgrowers and Norman Strachan managed the wool scour which was a very important local institution, it was the biggest employer in the town by far and without it Ilfracombe would have been just a whistle stop for the railway. There was the feeling that everyone was engaged in a great and vital enterprise, the wool industry, the industry that carried Australia on its back.

‘The other great talking point was schooling. The geography meant that almost all the children in the group were being taught by their parents, invariably by their mothers, with the aid of lessons by correspondence. Some mothers were

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From left: Sheep in Ilfracombe's railway trucking yards – Australia rode on their backs.

Ilfracombe scoured wool was soft and lustrous because of the special qualities of the local bore water.

Raw wool arrived in bales, it was scoured to remove dirt, grease and vegetable mater, and then it was pressed into bales for transport to market.

Right, above: Final year students at Moreton Bay College prepare for a school play – Quentin Strachan in centre, front.

Right, below: Newly admitted barrister Quentin Bryce in 1965.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

teaching two, three or even more children, and trying to run a household as well. It was a stern challenge and when the mothers got together they used to share their experiences and talk about how they handled the school work.

Mrs Strachan, Quentin’s mother, was a big help with all that because she had been a professional teacher.

‘The other common interest for the women was home making, trying to make homesteads as cool and comfortable as possible and trying to introduce colour and beauty into everyday lives. So often it was a stark, hot, dry and dusty environment outside. Everyone worked hard to get gardens started, even if there was only bore water at many places. They wanted an oasis around the homestead, they were keen to prove that just because they were living in the outback it didn’t mean that standards would slip. They wanted to live civilised and cultured lives.

‘It really was a wide brown land and I think it gave people broad mental horizons, the habit of thinking in an expansive way. Although Ilfracombe was isolated, there was keen interest in world affairs and people tried not to miss the

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ABC news and News Review wireless programs. They were well aware that there was a world beyond Ilfracombe, a big world full of chances for their children, chances that they themselves had not had.

‘The people of our parents' generation had been through two world wars and a great depression, as well as countless droughts and other disasters. They were people for all seasons, they knew how to live through good times and bad and their experience had been that there were more bad years than good ones. That didn’t dampen their optimism or tenacity. And the bad times sharpened the sense of social obligation, the sense that they had to be ready to help someone along if they weren’t travelling so well.

‘In the late 1940s things started to get a little bit better but the next drought or collapse in wool prices was always just around the corner. The thing that kept those people going was their hope for the next generation. They lived for their children, not for themselves. I remember them all being very patient and tolerant with children and, above all, encouraging. They all said “You can do whatever you want to do. Just work hard and don’t waste your time,” was their advice.

‘They were all committed to making whatever sacrifice was necessary for their children to have better chances in life than they had. They saw that a good education was the best gift they could give to the next generation, they felt strongly that education would give their children the personal capacity to take the best possible advantage of whatever chances came their way in life.

‘There was confidence that if the children got a good foundation for life, if they were properly brought up and if they were well enough educated, they could succeed at whatever they might want to do. Had they lived to see Quentin installed as Governor of Queensland, then Governor-General of Australia, they would have been delighted but they would not have been astonished. They would have simply taken it as proof they were right all those years ago when they said that their children had it in them to do anything if they put their minds to it.

‘Today, I feel that Quentin being down there at Yarralumla is a testament to her parents and the people like them from around Ilfracombe. They were very special people, living in a special place at a very special time.’

Ilfracombe was good country for growing and scouring wool and it was good country for growing people, as Quentin Strachan was to show.

By 1949, the Ilfracombe wool scour was in decline. Prices for raw wool were improving and buyers no longer paid a premium for scoured wool. At the same time, Norman and Naida were considering how they could make it possible for their children to have secondary educations. The family left Ilfracombe and moved first to Belmont in Brisbane, where Norman worked with Morris Woollen Mills. There were further migrations in years to come, to Launceston, back to Belmont, to a farm near Tenterfield and then to suburban St Lucia in Brisbane.

While her daughters were at school and university, Naida went back to teaching, this time as a remedial teacher at the Brisbane spastic centre. Quentin frequently accompanied her mother when she took handicapped people on outings to the theatre and other places. 'It left me with a profound sympathy for their differences,' the Governor-General said. In their later years, Norman

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Above: Quentin Bryce in 1978, on the day of her appointment to the Women's Advisory Council.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

Above: Quentin Strachan first met Michael Bryce at school, then renewed the acquaintance at university. The couple were married in 1964, after Sir Henry Abel Smith had given some fatherly advice.

and Naida lived on a farm at Cooroy before they settled on Mount Tamborine, where Norman died in 1985. Naida lived to enjoy the great thrill and personal satisfaction of seeing Quentin sworn in as Governor of Queensland, a year before she died in 2004.

During the family’s time at Belmont, Quentin went to the Camp Hill state school, then became a boarder at the small and excellent Moreton Bay College in 1956. ‘I loved those years,’ she says. ‘Our headmistress was an equable, well educated, professional woman, highly and warmly regarded. Widowed with two children, she ran a home and a school ... she got on with whatever needed to be done, assiduously and without fuss. Her forthright example assured us of our capacity to do anything we chose while teaching the attendant duty to share its rewards well and beyond our fortunate selves.’9 That forthright example has been influential ever since.

‘My education was the greatest advantage of my life. I know how hard my parents worked to give it to me. My chance discovery that Dad had continued to pay off my school fees long after I had left Moreton Bay College profoundly affected me. It disclosed my parents’ quiet resolve, their commitment to my lifelong advancement and well-being and their tacit anticipation that I would make something decent of their investment. ... I had a clear sense of my duty to deliver and to do what I could to secure the same for others less advantaged, particularly women.

‘Feminism was for me a natural and necessary consequence of those nascent days. What girl who was told she could do anything wouldn’t assume that she was entitled to participate fully in life and society? Why wouldn’t that girl then be resolute for change when she discovered that her assumption didn’t apply to the majority of other women?’10

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Quentin studied hard at school and at the University of Queensland, where she first embarked on an Arts degree with a major in social work. Later, she switched to an Arts and Law combination. ‘I was imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place and I thought that Law was the best foundation to equip me to strive for the changes that I thought were necessary to make life better for people, especially for women and children,’ she explained.

She graduated in Arts in 1962, then in Law in 1965. In that year she was admitted to the Queensland Bar, where she was one of the first women to trespass into that male dominated domain. It didn’t help that at the time of her admission she was obviously pregnant with her first child.

Quentin had married architect Michael Bryce in 1964. They had first met at Camp Hill state school, then renewed the friendship at university. Some of their courtship was conducted in and around Government House in Brisbane.

Michael recalls ‘I was in the University Squadron and I was honorary air force aide to Sir Henry Abel Smith for two years. Sir Henry was a remarkable man of course, when he was appointed people said “Oh, dear, another snooty English Horse Guards Colonel,” but it wasn’t long before Queensland fell in love with him.

‘I would accompany the Abel Smiths to functions and as an aide it was my duty to dance with everyone, not only Quentin. After I had taken the Abel Smiths home, I could change out of my uniform and then return to the party to dance with Quentin as much as I liked!’

Quentin remembers that ‘The Abel Smiths put on a celebration for us when Michael and I became engaged. Then Sir Henry took me aside and said he wanted to give me a few pointers about how to look after my husband. He took me into his dressing room and explained in great detail how I should look after his clothes, how I should hang everything up so his clothes weren’t creased and how

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I should make sure his garters didn’t cause varicose veins. They were marvellous people and we kept in touch later.’

Left: A gathering at Bamaga – front row from left: Daisy Tamwoy, Bethena McDonnell, Kales Pablo, Fanny Bowie, Dinah Tamwoy, Diai Bagiri, Rene Hobson, Governor Bryce, Merian Crowe, Magdelene Cottis; back row, from left: Lydia Toby, Seriba McDonnell, Sarah Pablo, Celia Ropeyarn, Richard Tamwoy, Emily Salle, George Williams (Rusty), Francis Brisbane and Gina Nona.

Centre: Governor Bryce with baby Macy Motton and Lydia Toby.

Right: Governor Bryce and Rusty Williams share some stories at Bamaga.

In 1966, the newlywed Bryces went to England for two years. ‘Michael was indentured to an English architect while I threw myself into motherhood. Before long I was pregnant with our second child. It was the swinging sixties ... and I found girl power, Twiggy, Cilla Black, Marianne Faithful ...’ While the children slept, Quentin hungrily consumed ‘the most astute commentaries on social change. I was revelling in a new era and pondering my own renaissance upon our homecoming in 1968.’

Her renaissance was at first to be a working mother, when she became a tutor at the University of Queensland School of Law. In 1969, she became a lecturer and she continued to teach in the law school until 1983. Along the way, there were more children. Michael (known as Jack) had been born in Brisbane in 1966, Revelyn was born in London in 1967, then Rupert in 1969, Clothilde (known as Chloe) in 1971 and Tom in 1973 were born after the Bryces returned to Brisbane.

Quentin Bryce was appointed to the National Women's Advisory Council in 1978, then shot to national prominence in women's affairs when she became convenor of that body in 1983. In 1984 she was appointed the founding director of the Women’s Information Service in the Office of the Status of Women, in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. In 1988, she was appointed Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner within the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. A host of other jobs and postings came during these years, including the appointment as foundation chair of the National Childcare Accreditation Council. In that role she demonstrated that she was not afraid to confront powerful vested interests.

When she turned 50 at the end of 1992, Quentin Bryce’s life was already replete with the achievement of so many of the things that she had committed herself to as a young woman. Her success did not please everyone and it puzzled some. Her unshakeable commitment to the removal of the barriers to female advancement made some politicians nervous, while her impeccable grooming and tailoring made some of the more strident feminists wonder if she was really one of them. She achieved so much because, in the end, she was able to win the respect and confidence of all sides. She was not a radical feminist, and that reassured the cautious, yet she was an achiever and that pleased the radical feminists and the countless other groups and individuals who benefited from her achievements. ‘A lot of the things I do best I do quietly,’ she reflected later. Her contributions were acknowledged by her appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (OA) in 1988. In 2003, she became a Companion of the Order (AC).

Many people were astonished when, in 1997, she accepted appointment as Principal and Chief Executive Officer of Women’s College within Sydney University. There were fears that she would be taking her hands off the levers that actuated positive change. However, she had always accepted the responsibility to mentor women who came to her for help and guidance. The Women’s College job gave her the opportunity to do that intensively, among young women whom she thought represented the future.

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On her sixtieth birthday, 23 December 2002, she took a phone call from Queensland’s premier, Peter Beattie. He wasn’t ringing to say ‘Happy Birthday.’

Instead, he asked, ‘How would you like to be Queensland’s new Governor?’

Beattie went on ‘Would you like time to think about it?’ She didn’t need time. She said that she would accept the appointment.

On 29 July 2003, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Queensland’s twenty fourth governor. She said on that occasion ‘I see in the role of governor a unique opportunity to serve the community in which I was nurtured, educated, my values and principles shaped and where I was encouraged to participate in our democracy.’11 A renewal and redefinition of the vice-regal role had begun with Governors Forde and Arnison. That renewal was now to be accelerated and intensified.

‘Queensland was achieving its destiny. It had become a confident place that no longer felt the need to apologise for itself. That growing confidence had started with the Commonwealth Games in 1982, continued with World Expo in 1988, then accelerated with the flowering of the economy and the arts, with more and better schools and other educational facilities. But, by comparison with earlier times, the business of government had become much more hectic. The government was doing much more because people expected it.

‘Just how big the business of government had become soon became obvious to me when I had to deal with an enormous volume of Executive Council work.

A big box of papers would be delivered to me on Tuesdays, for the Executive Council meetings on Thursdays. I took it very seriously because it was serious business. I wasn’t going to sign anything unless I knew what it was about, so I made a point of reading all the papers to be well prepared for the meeting and so that I would be well informed about everything that was going on. The papers were extremely well put together by highly professional people and I got a lot out of reading them but sometimes I had to stay up all night to do it.

‘I also thought a lot about the governor’s ceremonial roles, the openings of parliament, the swearings-in and so on. I have a strong feeling about the importance of ritual and ceremony in reinforcing long standing democratic traditions and processes and I believed it was important that it should all be done properly. I wanted to carry out these duties impeccably, but with friendliness. I was always grateful for my legal background, it was a big advantage when I was doing that sort of thing.

‘It was democracy at work. I gained great respect for people who contribute to democracy by taking on public office. The community has much higher expectations of its politicians these days. Once, politicians were lofty and inaccessible. Now, they are expected to be available and responsive to every representation, every demand. I also gained a lot of respect for the military, and made many friends among people in the armed services community.

I was a bit nervous about uniforms at first, but they quickly welcomed me and embraced me.

‘One of the other duties, a very pleasant one and an enormous privilege, was to go to Britain to meet the Queen. She likes to meet her governors and to have personal knowledge of who her representatives are. She has a much more relaxed and personal relationship with them than she might have with, say, an

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Left: Guide Dog graduation at Government House, 2008.

Right: Wheelchair dancing at Government House.

ambassador. The Queen is extraordinarily well informed about Australia and very keenly interested in everything that happens here.

‘Otherwise, we hardly ever left the state. Queensland is a big and far flung place and it takes all a governor’s time to get around it. You have really got to take your hat off to those early governors who did so much travelling despite the difficulties of their times.

‘Wherever we went we found that people were pleased to see us and we were certainly enriched by the people we met. Every day, everywhere, we found examples of courage, inspiration and support in the generous contributions made to our cultural, economic, political and intellectual life by quite remarkable people. They were people who cared, people who gave of themselves, bringing talent, hard work and commitment to enhancing the well being of our society.

‘I invited a wide range of people to stay at Government House, especially country people who had extended hospitality to us. At dinners I would try to bring city and country people together. I thought about the guests and the seating arrangements very carefully and I put people together where I thought there might be an opportunity for them to make connections. Sometimes achieving change can be a matter of putting two people together. I always tried to have someone from regional or remote parts of the state at dinner and of course I would invite them to stay because they might have come such a long way.

‘I wanted to share Government House. I tried to open it up, to make it accessible to people who had never been there before. I wanted to honour people who were

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doing good things, I wanted the house to be a centre for Queenslanders, I wanted people to be able to see something of what the role of the governor was. One way we did this was to start with the 200 or so organisations I was patron of, to have them come to the house and possibly have their annual meetings there or put on special activities in the house.’

Miranda Mason was civilian aide for the governor from mid 2004 until 2007.

She recalled that ‘The governor would arrange for special groups of people to come to Government House for some of their activities. We had a really magical performance by a group of wheelchair dancers, we had Guide Dog graduation ceremonies and art shows for the children’s hospital school. She actually visited the children’s hospital very regularly, about once a month. There were activities for the Scouts and Guides and organisations like the Children’s Book Council.

People would say to me, “this makes us feel very special.”

‘In 2006 we met some women from Lockhart River Aboriginal community at a conference. Later, we went up there and stayed two days in the women’s centre while the governor got to see at first hand their problems and needs. Then we had some women from Lockhart River come down to stay at Government House.

‘Governor Bryce was an incredibly hard worker, she would often go to six or seven events in a day, from breakfast time until late at night. She was in great demand to attend all sorts of activities everywhere because people quickly got to know that she was warm, friendly, interested and approachable. The governor was always interested and she had a remarkable ability to engage with people from all walks of life. She went out of her way to be supportive of people who had some sort of disability. At any function, if there was someone in a wheelchair or someone with some sort of handicap you could be certain that Governor Bryce would seek that person out and would spend time with him or her. She knew how important some personal expression of understanding and support would be for that person.

‘As well as all the official business, the governor kept up with a wide range of personal contacts, especially with the many people with whom she had a mentoring relationship. These people included former pupils at university and residents at Sydney Women's Women’s College. She was always encouraging people and helping them to keep on the road when things got tough.’

Through the Bryce years at Government House, Michael McDonald was employed as House Manager. He recalled, ‘my role was to ensure the smooth running of the household. The governor was a tireless worker and we all found it difficult to keep up with her. But it was exciting and challenging. She created more opportunities for access to Government House and we really enjoyed showing the house to people who had never been there before and had never thought they might ever go there. They were very interested in the place.

‘The daily program varied enormously, but an ordinary day for the house staff might involve the governor having a breakfast meeting with a few people, then callers coming to see the governor in the morning, then a luncheon, more callers in the afternoon, then perhaps a dinner or a reception for up to 200 or so people, but up to about 600 if the reception was held outside. Sometimes we might handle more than 2000 in a week at Government House.' Government House was certainly being shared.

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Below, left: Governor Bryce at the tip of Cape York – with Possession Island behind. On the island, on 22 August 1770, Captain James Cook formally took possession of the east coast of Australia and named it New South Wales.

Centre: Ilfracombe, 2003 – Governor Bryce presents the Willowie Cup trophy to the winner of the feature race at the town's annual race meeting.

Right: At Windorah, in Queensland's far west – from left: Barcoo Shire Mayor Bruce Scott, Sandy Kidd, Governor Bryce and George Hammond. Bruce, Sandy and George are descendants of district pioneers who escorted earlier governors through their district using horse and buggy transport. ‘You have got to take your hat off to them,' says Governor Bryce.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

For Michael Bryce ‘it was a challenging role but it never troubled me, being the husband of a governor. For six years, I had been the husband of the Principal of Women’s College. I was delighted when Quentin was asked to be Governor of Queensland because I felt she was well suited to the job. She has integrity, she applies herself and works very hard, and she has a strong sense of what is right.

It seemed to me that they were the qualities a governor needed. The governor represents the foundation stone of Queensland identity and I think Quentin did that very well, I was proud of her. I continued to work in my profession but at the same time I supported Quentin as much as I could.’

Her staff might have found it difficult to keep up, but for Quentin Bryce her five year term as governor was exhilarating. ‘I felt I was right at the heart of Queensland and Michael and I certainly saw the best of the state. You saw the best of the wonderful people who were doing things for others, you saw all the things that were happening. I was never ashamed of being a passionate, parochial Queenslander. I was just so proud to be able to acknowledge the wealth of human life and achievement that we saw everywhere in Queensland.

It was the most marvellous honour to be able to serve in that role.

‘Early in 2008 I was appointed for a two year extension to my original five year term. I was looking forward to seeing out the extended term because it would have taken me through the sesqui-centenary year and it would have given me the chance to see through some of the things I had started. But the opportunity to become Australia’s first female Governor-General was not something I could refuse.’12 On 5 September 2008, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia’s twenty fifth Governor-General. It had been a long journey from Ilfracombe to Yarralumla, a journey through real Australia.

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