I was so glad to get hold of this from Mandy, Jilly's daughter. I wasn't at Jilly's funeral as I was in Iceland.
The Jill Moody story (compiled from Jilly’s anecdotes and historical papers and photos)
Jill was born on 19 Feb 1935 the youngest daughter of Carl and Gladys Moody, joining her older sister Shirley and brother Bruce.
Carl was an electrician who had served in WWI, and like many servicemen was very affected by his service. Glad was a wife and mother, with home duties listed as her profession in official records.
The family lived at 9 Warwick St Punchbowl for many years. They kept chooks in the back yard for eating and for eggs. In those days everyone did, and no one complained if a rooster crowed.
The family didn’t have a car and don’t seem to have ventured far from the local area. When asked if they ever went into town to see the Harbour Bridge the answer was ‘no’. Jilly nominated tennis as being a leisure activity in her growing up and noted that Shirley was very good at tennis.
Jill attended Punchbowl Primary School, and the family seems to have attended the local Methodist church at times.
By the time Jill was 13 the family was struggling. As Jilly put it “my father came back from WWI and was a mess. My brother came back from WWII and was a mess. They didn’t need me to look after. My mother went to the Methodist church we used to go to and asked for help’. I think that was very brave. She asked would they help and they did”.
The way they helped was to organise Jills entry to Annesley School for Girls in Bowral as a boarder, and in February 1948 she commenced her first term there. Her school reports indicate that she struggled with various subjects presumably due to a different school system than she was used to.
Her reports generally noted her talent and interest in music and drama and said that she was good at games.
According to Jilly she slept on the verandah at Annesley which in those days was not enclosed. When asked was that for fun she explained it was her bedroom - putting that down to her being there as a non-fee- paying student.
‘But I played the piano for them and sang and they sang and danced’ she said. She also sang them opera, including the Mikado.
What Jilly didn’t say in that conversation was how talented a singer she was and how much music had been a part of her life in her teens in particular.
On lined paper with the Annesley letterhead and a crest including the words Annesley MGC School, Jill has written in pencil a School Song. Headed School song (I made up) it goes like this.
And in the morn we rise at 6.30We’re ready for our prep at 10 past s-e-ven and if you ask us why we have to do itWe’re at the MGC schoolFar, far, awayFar away, far away, far away far awayWe’re at the MGC School far far away.
No doubt Bowral seemed a long long way from Punchbowl!
Jill was only able to stay at Annesley for two years…1948 and 1949. According to a letter penned by her School Principal Miss Prater she had had to leave due to her father’s illness. The letter is here and is worth reading in full. To Whom It May Concern . . .
In 1950 Jill obtained a position as Junior Receptionist/telephonist with American Travel in Sydney. According to the reference the firm provided she resigned after three months to take up another position. The reference is also a positive one noting that Jill ‘had fully satisfied their exacting requirements’.
Another reference from 1950 is from the minister of the Presbyterian Church at Punchbowl. The minister speaks highly of Jill’s character and notes she is attached to the Young People’s Fellowship and attends the regular church services.
1951 at the age of almost 16, Jill took vocational guidance testing.
The Vocational Guidance Bureau Report said:
your own first choice of career – actress – is very difficult to enter and your present hobby interest in this work may have to suffice. On the other hand, your interest in beauty culture appears wise. Work as a saleswoman of beauty preparations is suggested as a congenial alternative.
That report is dated 31st January 1951.
Five days later Jill signed her Apprentice Indenture papers for an apprenticeship as Beauty Operator in Castlereagh St in the city. This was a four-year apprenticeship.
At the same time Jill was pursuing singing. There are various certificates from Eistedfords held between 1951 and 1954. Newspaper articles outline Jill being soloist at Shirley’s wedding and reception in 1952, at Shirley’s 21st party (which by the way had an impressive 130 guests!).
Shirley and Jill also performed for a friends 21st party, and Bruce Moody is recorded as “gate-crashing“ this event dressed up as the famous Mae West! It seems all three Moody children had talent!
There is a theatre program from Rowe Street Musicals of July 1951 for a production of Maritza which lists Jill Moody as playing the character of Lisa and performing in three duets. Jill is photographed looking stunningly beautiful – that is the photo that appears on the front of the Order of Service.
There was a front page newspaper article in Bowral’s local paper regarding a concert in Bowral at which 18 year old Jill Moody, then living in Sydney, had been invited to perform. It stated: Jill Moody, gave a charming rendition of songs exactly suited to her pure, beautifully trained soprano voice and vivacious personality”.
Jill was very committed to developing her talents in both acting and operatic singing, and around this imie she competed in an Aria competition against the well-known soprano, June Bronhill.
These read as follows:
The Four Mails Octobert 23 1953An Artistic Treat, Concert for Eisteddfod Society.The Bowral Eisteddfod Society Concert,On the 6th November The Four Mails front page reported on the concert under the heading Talented Artists Visit Bowral. Part of it reads, ‘Following the order of the programme , Jill Moody, also known in Bowral, especially in Annesley circles, gave a charming rendition of songs exactly suited to her pure, beautifully trained soprano voice and vivacious personality” …It finishes…’the flower decked stage with our community grand piano made an attractive setting for the lovely young singers in their exquisite flowing dresses and the very enthusiastic audiences were very warn in their applause and vociferous in their demand for encores, in the second half, which were most generously given by the artists.”Jill Miles
The next phase of Jill’s life began when she met Reg – they dated and then became engaged in 1953, marrying the following year. Jill was 19 and Reg 21.
Reg worked initially as a Teller at the National Bank but moved over to GJ Coles thinking that this would afford better opportunities. It did and he rose through the ranks and stayed with the company over 35 years, through till his retirement.
Jill played the part of an executive’s wife, attending company balls and other functions, but the corporate world was definitely not her scene. Jill speaking in later life said Reg was a decent man, but they had nothing in common.
To backtrack, in 1956 Jill and Reg’s first child Peter was born. There are some beautiful photos of Peter as little boy.
Mandy was born in 1958. She was seriously ill for the first few months of her life after being given a medication that harmed her. She nearly died at 6 months, when she was admitted to hospital weighing less than her birthweight.
During this time, Reg’s sister Stel helped by caring for Peter for about 18 months.
Peter and Mandy recall Jill having various mental health struggles in their early years, and they both seem to have created a world of their own in childhood and adolescence . . . Mandy becoming immersed in the lives of various pets she had, and some local horses, and Peter involving himself in sport.
The family moved from Sydney to Tamworth then back to Sydney before moving to Perth for 2 years in 1966. These moves were all part of the process of Reg being promoted through the ranks at Coles.
Peter and Mandy can only recall the family having one holiday – to Tuross Lakes – which was made all the more memorable when, while driving through heavy rain on the way home, the windscreen wipers stopped working. There were various stops to ask for advice on how to make it possible to see the road in the pouring rain. The main advice was to cut a potato in half and wipe it over the outside of the glass. We were all able to attest to the fact that this is not a brilliant solution. We did however, get home safely eventually.
Jill and Reg finally parted around 1983 with Jill leaving the family home to take up a live-in position at Sunnyhurst providing respite care for intellectually disabled children.
In 1975 Mandy moved to Melbourne with Reg, and Peter remained in Sydney moving into independent living.
In 1978 Jill married Dr Brian Robinson the man she would later describe as the ’love of her life’. Brian, a brilliant gentle astrophysicist had become a single father to his three year old son Anthony, after he and his wife divorced.
Anthony was now six and Brian had had a series of live-in nannies to care for Anthony while he was at work. The position became vacant, Jill successfully applied and took up the position, and a year or so later they fell in love. The rest, as they say, is history.
Married to Brian, Jill’s life took quite a different turn. As Peter describes it she went from being a housewife and mother to having a more worldly wise life, mixing with the scientific community, travelling overseas when Brian attended international conferences, and generally enjoying being part of Brian’s world.
Jill was step-mother to Anthony and facilitated his schooling and extra-curricular activities. She was of the firm view that Anthony’s mother, who was by then a Professor at a University in Paris, was the cause of his anxieties and she would often express this view.
In 1984 Brian was rushed to hospital needing a quadruple bypass and this led to him deciding to create a less stressful life. They bought a boat and spent most weekends sailing at Pittwater and later with friends from the Coastal Cruising Club. Jill and Brian owned two sloops the 26 foot Jilling About and later the 33 foot ‘Narama’.
In 1991, Jill and Brian sold the Castle Cove home and moved to Magnetic Island where they lived for most of that decade. Here they were part of a creative community of artists, musicians and environmentalists. Jill and Brian started a music listening group, Brian wrote a column on astronomy for the Magnetic Times, they were involved in politics, the lobbying against Hinchinbrook Island etc.
By early 2000 they felt the need to be closer to health facilities and bought into Henry Kendall Bayside retirement village. Here they became the voluntary Welfare Officers for three years supporting other residents.
Sadly in July 2004 Brian passed away. Around 2006 Jill sold the Bayside unit and moved full-time to Kirribilli.
The Kirribilli unit had been bought some years before and had served as a Sydney base both for Jill and Brian’s time at Magnetic Island and their time at Bonnells Bay. Fortunately for family and friends that unit together with the neighbours unit provided a fabulous vantage point for New Years Eve Fireworks! This was a tradition over many years.
In 2006, a short two years after Brian’s death, Tony died and Jill in response seemed to increased her spiritual searching and became involved in various groups. She also decided to be called Jilly.
Jilly underwent training as group leader and commenced an Eckhart Tolle group. This group thrived for many years meeting at Jill’s unit at Kirribilli. Some members became firm friends and would go on to support her after the closure of the group.
As her mobility decreased Jilly became an avid use of social media and was never far from her laptop.
By 2017 it was clear that Jilly could no longer manage at Kirribilli and a move to Anthem in Bowral was agreed upon. This was a relatively easy process as Jilly was always accepting of the changes that life inevitably brings.
The move in 2018 would bring Jilly closer to where Mandy was living but also brought her life full circle by returning to the town of Bowral where she had attended boarding school.
Jilly was amused by this, and enjoyed being taken to the now Annesley Retirement Village to enjoy a coffee at their outdoor café with Mandy and to reminisce.
Jilly spent around six years at Anthem and was privileged to be able to have a large apartment style unit that she could furnish to reflect the character of the Kirribilli unit with significant furniture pieces and art works including paintings and sculptures created by Brian.
The care at Anthem was fantastic and in those early years Jilly enjoyed being able to be a listening ear to some of the staff under stress. As the years wore on and her health declined she was probably more the case that she actually became a source of stress to the staff, however the staff continued to provide their excellent care through thick and thin. The family is very grateful for the excellent care provided by Anthem.
We are also very appreciative of Xenia, Shushan and Graham who kept up their support of Jilly to the end. Jilly used to so look forward to the restaurant outings with them …especially the iced coffee with extra ice-cream served just for her at the Mill.
And Jilly loved Angela’s weekly visits where Jilly said they “talked about nothing in particular but had such a good time”
Thank you also to Rett who as her support person had the difficult task of helping Jilly to downsize and tidy, and to Rochelle who only had two meetings with Jilly but was privileged to hold her hand as she told the story of her life and in particular of the “love of her life” Brian. Rochelle was greatly impacted by this time with Jilly and the warmth she felt from her.
