I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation – on whose land we hold this gathering – I pay my respects to Elders past, present and future – I recognise Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who gather here today to honour this significant life.
My name is Kate Brennan and I am a community worker in the suburb of Glebe. I have accepted this honour of speaking on behalf of the Glebe community, about one of our own who has left us. I have spent time speaking to Glebe people – residents and workers – about her life and the legacy which her presence, friendship, and finally her passing have left.
It is the community in which our friend and colleague lived and worked for the last 35 years. It is the community in which she spent countless hours advocating, advising, speaking, scrutinising and connecting. It is the place she called home.
Perhaps what allowed her to fit so well into the motley crew of Glebe was her ability to connect across diversity, to reach out to people. It is certainly a feature anyone who came into contact with her understood – she was a succinct and practical communicator – with a razor-sharp skill for connection.
One worker shared his perspective on the special way she had of giving you her undivided attention. He said: “You felt her spotlight on you – she wasn’t just interested in my work – she was interested in me.”
It was a common experience of the community of Glebe to be pleasantly surprised by her arrival at an event. How she even knew about many of them, we are unsure – but in she would stride, whether it was a gathering of COW group (acronym for Concerned Older Women) of which Robyn was an honorary member, or a community barbecue with a few families and a dog. Into the smoke and the chaos would stride this lanky, bespectacled, oft stern-faced woman.
She’d slip in beside you, lean in, peer over her glasses, and ask, “How are things?” It wasn’t, one knew, any ordinary usage of the phrase.
Another community member observed: “She was like a private investigator – her ear always to the ground – that marked how she worked for this community.”
The treasurer of a local charity board reflected: “Three or four times our service got very close to the wire … I’d call Robyn and within days we’d get some relief. I don’t know what she did or how she did it – but she always followed up listening with action.”
There was a feeling that her whole life was her work and a sense that she seemed less interested in her role than what she could get done through it. She was a conduit who viewed the range of positions she held as a vehicle for action. And she never hid behind bureaucracy.
Despite this, her presence demanded no tribute – she didn’t want to be the centre of attention or to take up a lot of oxygen. She would circulate with everyone – not just the allegedly important people.
As one Aboriginal Elder put it: “She was a Holden – not a Cadillac.”
Another worker commented: “She believed in the work being done at a community level – deeply – she believed in its power and influence.”
Many to whom I spoke described her as a mentor.
She was also an Elder in the community– this is a title not lightly given. She portrayed the dignity and unspoken authority of such. She was unflappable, clear and interested.
In hindsight we have wondered how she was able to establish such breadth of relationship – as today’s gathering is testament. “Powerhouse”, “superwoman” were words used to describe her, but we know now that she was human, and the Glebe community acknowledges her family and friends, who had to share her with a much broader population.
Some years ago the Deputy Lord Mayor and I discussed the likelihood of us having relatives in common, both our bloodlines emerging from the jacaranda-lined streets of Grafton. She reminded me of people from the country, with an understated easy dignity, expressed through a straight spine – her clear and inquisitive gaze, as if seeking or seeing something a little beyond the grasp of the rest of us.
So she has left in this way – in the same way she lived and worked – quickly, quietly and determinedly. The community of Glebe will remember her.
And as is the way with all things passing, her death will create spaces to form relationships and remind us to listen deeply with intention, richly informed by the privilege of having known her.
