Some amazing shots of the Melbourne skyline and Docklands (I think - Andrew am I right on this??) from when we stayed 20 floors up at Southbank - the light from the balcony was amaxing!

The day before Alison's and Andrew's wedding - Melissa (the Blondie) Alison and i spent the afternoon and night together. it was a really special time just the three of us - totally at ease and not having to be or do anything for anyone else - I went to bed that night to the sound of my tow 30 plus daughters in the other room chattering away like they did in their teens for hours till i crashed - warmed the cockles of my heart...

the first photo we were in a coffee shop...second they were making "real rose petal" cones...you can't chuck confetti any more and we saved a packet doing them ourselves... and the throed photo is Melissa doing Alison's makeup on the wedding day...It makes me very happy to know and see how close our two daughters are - I don't think they have ever argued since they were teeny boppers.

Waiting for my sister's disc of wedding piccies and then can bore you all stupid.

Just a few wedding photos.
Here are some of the happy snaps taken at the wedding of Alison and her Andrew. There are much better ones coming but these are a start (I apologise I am probably going to post a few)

The wedding was held in the garden of an amazing old house in East Malvern (Melbourne) called the Gables - reception in the house itself - which was amazing - all the windows had the best lead light panes i have ever seen and as it was a freezing cold overcast day they had a fire blazing...it all suited the amazing bagpiper who piped during the wedding - and hard not to cry when I hear the bagpipes. He even played an Elvis song my mum loved called "Love me tender - I was amazed that Alison had been so considerate to remember this...and it was special when it came because neither of my parents, or Don's lived all that long - it felt like they and Don were present.

I loved Ali's choice of dress, simple and elegant. she and Melissa had goosebumps on their goosebumps - as the crowd had overcoats and scarves on to keep them warm - Ali and Lissy said they didn't feel a thing -

It was such a lovely and simple wedding - the celebrant was an ex Victorian copper so he wielded authority - and also made it fun..Don would have liked his Australiaisms.

Re my book "Without Due Care" mentioned before - the printers will have the first 100 copies ready by 30th September with the rest to follow shortly after that - the official launch is October 20th at 11am in the Waratah Room at NSW Parliament House - thanks to the Nats Andrew Stoner. I will have a local Book launch after this. The book is important not because it happened to one of the most vulnerable of people physically but it shows how the health system allows and then coverup gross negligence -I learned that within that system, the only one we have - there is no avenue for justice; no accountability at all and no care for my husband apart from a few glowing instance.

I would be happy to send post free and also free the book to my blog mates who basically saw me through the writing of this...and kept me company in the wee small hours when the horror of what happened kept me awake - I owe you all a great thanks for that. All I ask of my Australian friends is that after the book launch date 20th October they might go to their local library and show them the flyer I will send with the book and ask that the library obtain a copy of the book - this will help raise awareness of the book and of the serious issues it covers.

Thirty six tomorrow on the 11th /9/2010 - In Australia we call it 11/9/2010 not 9/11


So hard to believe that 36 years ago i had just gone into labour - but at 20 had no idea what it was so sat at home with Don and pretended all was a okay. Finally at nearly midnight we went to the hospital. It was 1974 and they put me in the ""unmarried mother's ward" which I only realised after i checked with all the other inhabitants who were all so coincidentally unmarried. Don didn't stay because dads weren't encouraged to do so in those days and he was although loving and cared what happened prepared to let nature take its course as my own dad and grandads had been.
They took her from me after birth and I wasn't allowed to hold her. It was Newcastle hospital and the policy was that unmarried mothers be encouraged to give up their babies for adoption. On and earlier visit (i had the flu really bad) I watched a young mum sign away her baby still high as a kite after the birth - but she told me later it was her wish anyway - the way it was done was criminal. After a few hours i wanted to feed my baby but they didn't seem to know where she was - so I got up and out and searched the wards - finally i was told she had been taken up to the humidicrib area ion the next floor - but no one would meet my eyes. I got in the lift and went up - of course Don and I were going to keep this wanted baby we had planned her..just not planned marriage - the bastards. I found Melissa up there with the lid off the humidicrib and the nurses curious as to why such a healthy baby had been sent to their section. She was hungry and I fed her - those nurses unlike downstairs were on my side. I took her with me down in the lift and told them i was keeping my baby. From then on they were helpful and treated me with respect - but had I been out of it - I wonder...given the reputation of Newcastle hospital in "adopting" out babies illegally - would I have been able to be with her if i hadn't tried so hard - as I did? I got the hospital notes a few years ago and they don't make sense but they are there for Melissa to see when she needs to see - I believe we came very close to being separated - told the baby had died or that someone elses less than healthy baby was mine...while the married couple got the healthy baby - this happened a lot.

Melissa (right) and Ali
















Don with Melissa who was about 6 days old - the love was visible.

















Melissa (right) at school with Alison on uniform free day when Melissa was six



















Melissa and Alison in their 20's












Melissa vamping it up at about 20




















Melissa the penitent in the timber town (wauchope) church being remonstrated by Father Alison...
So much fun we have had with Melissa in our lives -
A big happy 36 Melissa!!!!

Its a Wedding !!!!
In just over a week our youngest will be married to her lovely man...she has organised the bagpipes to play just as her sister did when she married three years ago - in honour of their dad. It was all I could do when I heard them play not to cry - but I did it - although the lump in my throat took some will power to get rid of.

He is the nicest person - with enough of the devil in him to make him good fun - the good thing is when they are together its like they always were -I was lucky enough to see Alison when she tried on the wedding dress and she was so beautiful it made me cry - as with Melissa - I know there is a lot of hype about weddings - but when its your own children its different - like one of the passages of life...and we mark these passages - joyful as with birth; sad when they leave home - but happy as well. Weddings - happy and then for those of us older there is the growing old (not yet!!) and then the parting when death comes - all important and have been for humanity for thousands of years - so a few tears to see my daughters in the wedding dress - is okay - they are bittersweet .
The two sisters together - Melissa will be Ali's bridesmaid - and although I haven't seen her dress yet I think its very bright - she got it by mail order from the US - and it only arrived the other day - and needs a bit of an adjustment...but I have no doubt it will be sooo Melissa - she has never turned out in anything that didn't make me smile - she is more like her two grandmothers this way - loving the bright colours no matter what - and she gets away with it.


And Alison and I - I get to do the Dad thing and walk with her down the aisle - Don and I were both planning on doing that anyway - he wanted us both to do it - so in a way we both will be doing it because as with melissa I have no doubt but that he will be there with us all day long.

I have written a short speech for the wedding and at the end of it an Irish wedding blessing,




"Sláinte! (It's a lawn chair) This is Gaelic for "To your health!”
May the Lord keep you in His hand And never close His fist too tight.

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.
May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.
May the saddest day of your future be no worse

Than the happiest day of your past.
May there be a generation of children
On the children of your children.
May you live to be a hundred years,
With one extra year to repent!

May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
May good luck pursue you each morning and night."

Sweet Georgia Brown & traktor (edited version)

How's this for rythmn

Finally close to seeing what the cover of the book will look like still a few adjustments such as including the word "by" in front of my name. The back cover is excellent but not finalised the words yet...but getting there - its been a long haul and some of you know just how long and it has changed drastidally from what i first wrote which some of you received...but it got better everytime I re edited it... The foreword and back cover was written by the founder of the medical error Action group who's name I will leave out until closer to publshing time but what she wrote is excellent,

"Medical negligence is a subject no one wants to talk about until it happens to them.

It is made all the worse for affected families because Australia's health system is saturated in cover-ups; a system so ruthless it does not matter if trusting patients end up dead.

When our loved ones die from their medical treatment, it is human nature to want an all encompassing explanation on what went wrong. The duty to our loved ones kicks in and drives us. We expect statutory authorities to act.

Therese Mackay, in demanding answers to 'what went wrong' with her late husband Don's treatment and care in a Sydney public hospital that led to his untimely and unnecessary death, was not only blocked by people with greater resources but also not helped by those people whose help she needed because of their institutionalized indifference.

No bereaved family with iatrogenesis the cause of death should have to steer the investigation to find the truth. The Mackay family so did. But those people in power who failed to exercise their statutory duty and do what is right did not consider that the Mackay family's efforts in wanting justice for Don would help others encountering the same tragedy when their loved ones too die from medical negligence.

The New South Wales health system let Don Mackay down. His family did not.

This is an account of a loving family's plight and fight for justice for the late Donald William Mackay 1950-2007."

I remember the first time I was shown the photo of my mother, who was in the photo aged about four. First there was the realisation that mum had been a child once, and not always my mother. Then a strange feeling at seeing the little face that looked away into the big sky – looking so similar to my own child face, but more delicate, always more delicate – I had another half of genes to deal with.
She sits on the warm loose dirt, her feet buried in the soil and looks away dreamily, so at peace in herself that to me then and now, she was as much a part of the earth she sat on as any of the trees and hills that framed the world - her world.


I can imagine the warmth she feels and the light she is a part of, long before the world took her and told her how things were meant to be. The year she turned four her young mother died. As she and her father lived miles from town, the best part of a day trip by horse and sulky into town and the same back a housekeeper was soon ensconced in the house and things changed, became more rigid, more serious less light hearted.

Gone was the young laughing mother who loved music and is photographed shortly before her death poking her tongue out at the camera because she was caught with her hair, set curling in rags.


Gone was the love and companionship that a brother or sister might have brought into a house which catered to the needs of what was proper. Mum told me once that as an adult she realised how very lonely she was as a child but as a child didn’t know the words for what she felt.


Grandfather did his best, never re marrying and being the best father he knew how – but without his wife’s soft touch sometimes although he loved mum dearly he was too proper, and also too afraid something might happen and take her away as well. Who can blame him? Pictures of mum riding the big draft horse as a small child but then later her father’s fear of accident meant this pleasure was also gone. Mum told me that so I do know.

Declared “not proper” were the exercise books mum as a child filled with stories about the birds and animals and about what lay over the hills and under the hills – all gone burned by a stupid superstitious housekeeper who knew her job was safe, being so far from town and considered trustworthy – too hard to replace. The books gone, the stories slowed and stopped till only a year before her death they began again, only one or two but the gift was still there.

And still in spirit light filled she would walk for miles the high rocky lichen covered mountains and hills she knew so well, dreaming her dreams, abandoning herself to the intense greens, greys and blues of the land she was part of.

All this remained in her, no matter the tight lips of the relatives, no matter her beloved father’s concerned displeasure at her raw youthful exuberance – it all remained and was poured into us as we came from her body, drank her milk and were held in her gentle, tolerant arms. Allowed to dream without fetters, allowed to be different, she even covered for me sometimes when others tried to pull rank on her and tell her how to raise us. Allowed into a world light and full of laughter and an understanding of how the world really is – called common sense.

Endless conversations after school, when she would listen to all my stories, something she was to do till she died. The pair of us could talk under cement, but it was always interesting and we never ran out of topics. In the early days mum was not big on gossip and I don’t recall her being nasty about anyone and there were plenty to be nasty about at times. As the years passed, towards the end she showed what a wonderful mimic she was, often imitating the voice or attitude of this or that person who considered themselves so important. I wondered how often she must have privately exercised this gift in private when we were young and she was expected to be oh so proper. In the afternoons at her place, at her little table we would talk, almost no subject left untouched. Mum’s idea of a good visit was to say, “We had some lovely talks.”
... and sadly there were days when depression came over her in waves, only to lift again – something she knew she had to deal with as the cycles flowed about her. One of the bravest of people I have ever known.

Somewhere the memory of a little girl, sitting with her feet in the warm loose soil, secure in the knowledge she was born with, shimmers in the haze amongst the rocky hills, hearing the animals and birds, wondering what lays over the hills or under them...remembering things too often forgotten.

Intravenous Vit C at very high levels brings New Zealand man out of a Coma after the doctors had given up on him and were ready to turn life support off - a year later he is alive and well.

This was an issue I deal with in my book " Without Due Care"

In my husband's case the pharmacist at the hospital okayed IV Vit C for Don but the ICU specialist refused to allow it to be used. While it may not have saved Don’s life it would have alleviated his brutal suffering; Vit C would have helped him - I know this!!!He died in misery and with brutality. The symptoms that made his suffering worse would have been alleviated by the IV Vit C we asked for him to have. I found out later after Don died that the ICU doctor involved did not have the legal right to refuse the treatment we asked for which was okayed by the pharmacist - the ICU specialist laughingly claimed thet IV Vit C at the levels we asked for might give Don kidney stones - what a nonsense...he'd been taking the stuff for 25 years at really high doses and not a stone in sight - and as he was clearly dying kidney stones were the last of his worries...this story from New Zealand only goes to show what a help it might have been - but then the Pharmaceutical companies can nt patent Vit C...and only a very few doctors will credit it for its marvellous properties when given at the right doses...

Our daughter Alison had this treatment weekly for two years for another condition - and it helped her as she recovered form a multiple of issues which saw her almost unable to look after herself. She slowly recovered. Alongside her were others who were going through Chemotherapy and were having the IV Vit C...it did help them overcome the dreadful side effects of Chemo in that she said they seldom experienced nausea and other drastic symptoms of the Chemotherapy regime.

Watch the link first before the you tube -

http://www.3news.co.nz/A-familys-fight-for-a-dying-man-/tabid/367/articleID/171552/Default.aspx