Disco Fever...

I didn't know what I wanted to do with 
my life when I finished school, but I did know somethings that I definitely did not want to become! I did not want to live in that small country town that I had grown up in, with a mind as small as the town it self! I did not want to work in a shop whether it was a clothes shop or not, I did not want to be a secretary, a teacher, a lawyer or even a doctor, what I did want to do, was to see this big beautiful world, and make my own mind up about it. I think that I did a pretty good job of that at least!


Many of the things that I had to do for a job, to keep body and soul together -  like waitressing, bar work and casual jobs like handing out flyers in shopping centres - had nothing to do with my passion for film and stage. It took me such a long time to figure out things about myself, one of them was that I wanted to be in the entertainment industry, preferably as an actress and that took me on a long and winding journey to who knows where.


I was quite nice looking, so I started off modelling while I was auditioning for parts as an actress and doing TV shows and stage plays, but the biggest thing to happen to me was that I got the role of Alice In Wonderland with Disney On Parade! What a wonderful time that was, how exciting, especially for a couple of young girls from Nelson Bay. One was the gorgeous young woman who was the major attraction at that time and our compere, Miss World, Belinda Green and the other was me! We met heaps of Aussie 'stars' like Jackie MacDonald, Don Lane, Ugly Dave Grey, Donnie Sutherland and so on and had an amazing time.


We toured around Australia playing to full houses and doing every TV show and interview that came our way, from the greyhound racing scene to shopping centre meet and greets, radio talk shows to playing a role on Celebrity Squares - what a way to become immersed in the whole crazy showbiz world that was Australia in the 70's. That show taught me something else about myself, that I could do or be anything I wanted and it showed me that the world was my oyster. I knew that I would never be the actress that I wanted to be, but hey, the only thing that was holding me back was ME.


After that show closed in Australia, I decided that something else would come along and it did, not playing anyone else as an actress, but playing a DJ and I was really good at it! I started in a couple of rooms that the deejay's from Double J played, called the Zoo in Darlinghurst and then on to a Walker Street, North Sydney, nightclub/restaurant that had burnt down before being done up and opening as 'Matches'! I worked there for a year or so and then moved to Melbourne working at a nightclub called Josephine's at Brighton which was THE place to be and the Dava at Mornington Peninsular again, they were fantastic places for a young woman to work because I was one of the first women working as a DJ in Melbourne.


By now, it was the 80's, the time of the Disco and I was in the right place at the right time again! I had an agent and was offered many places to work in, and eventually my agent chose for me to work at The Don Hotel in Darwin. I worked there for the first 6 months that it was open and I think I was extremely lucky to be the first female DJ in the Northern Territory.


It was completely renovated and opened as a casino well before the new Mindil Beach Casino was up and running. Again, that was a fantastic place for me to work and the other nightclub workers such as the bands and solo acts like singers and dancers, Darwin had never seen the likes of us, especially en-mass in the beautifully done out Don casino. That was another eye opener for a small town girl like me. The days were spent at the beach or in the hotel pool and the night were spent at the Disco or in the club, it was here that I first had a my Margarita and got the 'worm' in my drink!! The people of Darwin that I met as part of hotel/casino stayed in my mind ever since and it was something that I will treasure always.


Time had come for me to move on and I chose to come back to Sydney. As well as constantly working in the DJ world, I had other jobs while I was trying to work out what it was that I wanted to be. One of these jobs was as a 'brand-team hostess' for the cigarette company Rothman's. We worked at the Winfield Football, went to the Hobart Yacht Races, the Rothman's Horse Races, the Dunhill Polo and the Formula 1 car racing as well. Life was great and I had never had so much fun in my life nor had any thoughts that my life would in any way change, and for many years it didn't.


As for DJ-ing, I had jobs as diverse as 'War & Peace', a bikey hang out in Parramatta, the Taren Point hotel, a very swank, but bad place to be caught at, as some gangster types actually tried to kill the man I worked for and blew up his boat, with him on it!! The Betsy in North Sydney, Selina's in Coogee Bay, the Dee Why hotel as well as The St James Tavern, where I again had the best time and met one of my long time girl friends Christine. What a wonderful life we all had working, living and loving in the decade of the Disco!