Transcript: A to BE Episode 15

Mimi Kwa: People say life is a journey, not a destination. But how do you know you are on the right path?
Jo Stanley: If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa: Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley: And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa: And on A to Be, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley: We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve [00:00:30] been through to get here, the triumphs, challenges, and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa: And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Jane Rowe: Growing up very fearful of he’s going to hurt my mom, he’s going to hurt us. What’s happening? And a lot of angst about that. The first time I tried heroin, it completely took that angst out of my gut. Just I was [00:01:00] settled, I was calm. I didn’t have those feelings.
Mimi Kwa: We have such an amazing A to Be today. Jane Rowe is her name and her story is just mesmerizing. She’s one of those people you meet and, this is what happened when I met her, you know straight away that she has a tail to tell that is absolutely going to knock your socks off.
Jo Stanley: Well, she was raised in high society England. Already I’m hooked. She worked for Richard Branson.
Mimi Kwa: Double hook.
Jo Stanley: Yes. [00:01:30] And somehow ended up starting the Mirabel Foundation here in Australia. Mirabel is celebrating its 25th year supporting orphaned or abandoned children who find themselves in the care of extended family due to parental illicit drug use. It’s a beautiful organization.
Mimi Kwa: And it’s just a fascinating road that got her to a place of profound purpose working with Mirabel, a road with many twists and many, many turns.
Jo Stanley: And as always, Mimi, surprises around every [00:02:00] corner.
Mimi Kwa: Jane Rowe, it is so exciting to have you with us on A to Be today to just excavate your incredible history and all of the amazing things that you are doing today with the Mirabel Foundation. Welcome to our program.
Jane Rowe: Thank you. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.
Mimi Kwa: Now, we were just talking about what gets you out of bed in the morning and you said English Breakfast Tea.
Jane Rowe: PG Chips [00:02:30] English Tea is what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Mimi Kwa: And then that made me think, where did that come from in your childhood, in your teenage-dom? When did you start drinking that tea?
Jane Rowe: It was earlier. Well, I can’t remember when I started drinking it, but I’m from England and so you always kick the day off with tea. And I remember as a child, actually, my parents had, I don’t know if you had them here, the Teasmade by the bed?
Mimi Kwa: No.
Jo Stanley: By the bed?
Jane Rowe: It [00:03:00] is called a Teasmade, spelled M-A-I-D, I think. It would be a little machine with an alarm clock. And then you’d set the alarm and when the alarm went off, the water had boiled and the teapot was there and you would start. So I would always remember as a child, I would hear the alarm go go, “Oh, mommy and daddy are awake.” And they’d be there and they’d be pouring the hot water into the pot of tea.
Jo Stanley: So that you could have tea in bed first thing?
Jane Rowe: Yes.
Jo Stanley: This is a true dedication to tea.
Jane Rowe: It [00:03:30] is, absolutely. I doubt they’re still available, but I can remember it vividly. I always associate waking up in the morning with a cup of tea and I still do that. But I don’t have a Teasmade. I do get up and put the cattle on.
Jo Stanley: It’s very interesting how much A to Be is about the journey that makes us who we are and all the jigsaw pieces really. And what we eat and drink is so indicative of the family we came from. Isn’t it?
Jane Rowe: Yes.
Jo Stanley: For you being English and that memory [00:04:00] of your family, and you talk a lot and everything I’ve read about you, Jane, about the loving family you came from.
Jane Rowe: Yeah. So there was a lot of love. A lot of dysfunction, but hey, an awful lot of love. And that’s I think what gives us a resilience in life, is having that love.
Mimi Kwa: So that tea memory is something that’s bubbled up first thing in our conversation, but then when did you go to boarding school? Because that’s something that I [00:04:30] feel must have been very instrumental in your upbringing. So coming from obviously a very supportive, loving yet, as you say, dysfunctional family, what age did you get sent to boarding school?
Jane Rowe: 12, 13, I went to boarding school.
Mimi Kwa: Did you see that as a privilege and a joy or did you see that as being shunted off?
Jane Rowe: No, I didn’t see it as being shunted off at all. It was just that’s the way it’s going to be. We lived in [00:05:00] a village and I was very privileged, my life was very privileged, but it was just a given that you would go to boarding school from 12, 13. I had friends who, particularly boys later in life, they were sent to boarding school at seven.
Jo Stanley: I’ve heard four. Babies.
Jane Rowe: Babies. I know.
Jo Stanley: And given Mirabel is about children who have been separated from their family, [00:05:30] the trauma surely is the same.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. That separation, just unbelievable. I think things are very different now. We’re talking about 60 years ago when it was the norm. But I remember vividly being dropped off at school. I can remember that feeling in my stomach and that real acute painful homesickness.
Mimi Kwa: Did you take the Teasmade with you?
Jane Rowe: No, didn’t take the Teasmade with me. We’d have to get [00:06:00] up and walk so far and have breakfast and it’s a real physical pain, that yearning. But then it would ease a little bit in the week and then you would just be counting the days till your parents would come and visit you.
Mimi Kwa: Wow. But as you say, it was a very common, conventional thing to do in that demographic that you grew up in, in England. Princess Anne went to the same boarding school as you, I have read. [00:06:30] Did you meet her?
Jane Rowe: No. I didn’t meet her. She left I think the year before I was there. So I didn’t actually meet her, but our paths did cross in various ways after that.
Mimi Kwa: Was it like a legacy of privilege and royalty at schools like that in England?
Jane Rowe: Yes, there was. And the reason she went to the school I went to was because, [00:07:00] this sounds so privileged, doesn’t it, girls were allowed to have their own horses there. That was why it was chosen for her, because she was and continues to be very good into horses, whatever. I wasn’t into horses at all, but I still went to that school. But that was why that school was chosen for her.
Jo Stanley: Can you describe for us, how does it shape you growing up in, as you described, privilege like that?
Jane Rowe: I think looking back now it really equips [00:07:30] you to be able to deal with any situation, stand on your feet. Get on with everyone. Blend in. Assert yourself if you have to. I think it gives very good survival skills, although I think it can equally break a lot of people as well.
Jo Stanley: That’s being at the boarding school and separated in that way?
Jane Rowe: Yeah.
Jo Stanley: Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine that for some you thrive and for some you disappear.
Jane Rowe: Yeah. And I think you learn to manage your own pain and un-comfortability, [00:08:00] perhaps. You become restrained. You just learn how to get on with it and not cause too much fuss.
Jo Stanley: But what about the privilege, having that. Were you aware that you had wealth around you? Does that shape you?
Jane Rowe: Not at the time. I suppose I took it for granted. When I was a child, I certainly felt very privileged as a little girl. But I think like it’s so much in life, I didn’t [00:08:30] appreciate what I had till I didn’t have it. And then it was, I can’t believe you used to do this, do that, never think twice and suddenly I haven’t got that. And then you think, wow, how exclusive and fortunate was my upbringing and the opportunities that came with it.
Mimi Kwa: And when was the point that you realized you didn’t have that?
Jane Rowe: I think much later in life. When I was married, I was in Australia, my marriage broke [00:09:00] up, I had two young children, and the reality was I’ve got to get a job. It was everything that my life hadn’t taught me. In a way, I never actually thought I’d have to work. I thought I’d have to work, and women do work really hard being a mom, but I thought that was my role. And suddenly there was nothing to fall back on.
Mimi Kwa: But you did initially have a job, didn’t you pre-children, pre-marriage.
Jane Rowe: Yes.
Mimi Kwa: So tell us about [00:09:30] that.
Jane Rowe: In England, definitely, I always worked, but I wasn’t reliant on my wage. But always worked. And that was a given. It was like boarding school, I guess. You’ll go to boarding school, you will then leave home, you will go and live in London and you will work and you’ll go to secretarial college or whatever. So all those things I did do. I went to secretarial college in London and I was very rarely there [00:10:00] because I was too busy having a good time. I would be off in Amsterdam for the weekend having a lot of newfound freedom. And then when it came to leave, apparently I went down as the only person leaving secretarial college where her typing was faster than her shorthand. So I was basically unemployable.
And a friend of mine at the time said, “Oh, my cousin is [00:10:30] starting a new business working with this guy and it’s in the music industry and they’re looking for staff, and I’m sure you could get a job there.” So she organized for me to go and meet these people. And I was asked at that interview, I wasn’t asked about my typing, I was asked my name and my star sign. And being Jane and being an Aquarius got me the job and it was Richard Branson setting up Virgin Records. [00:11:00] So that was my first job.
Jo Stanley: Did he interview you?
Jane Rowe: Yeah, there was a couple. He and one other person. It was in this warehouse in Portobello Road. It was a very informal interview and I got the job.
Mimi Kwa: How funny that the actual month you were born is why you’re here today?
Jo Stanley: That’s amazing.
Mimi Kwa: [inaudible 00:11:18].
Jane Rowe: Probably. I could have been leaving and got the job, who knows? But it was a very, very informal interview and it’s like, “Yep, that’s fine. You’ve got the job.”
Jo Stanley: Wow.
Mimi Kwa: And what was the job?
Jane Rowe: In those [00:11:30] days, we started with a mail order company of albums, records, so there’d be an office of us girls and the money orders would come in and with what albums they wanted. So you would type up the label and it might be Grateful Dead import or whatever, type them all up, and then you would take them to the other side of the warehouse where the guys would be there with shelves and they’d get posted out. It was in the New Musical [00:12:00] Express. Every music paper every week had the Virgin mail order list. That’s really how he started his company.
Mimi Kwa: Wow. To give you some insight, it wasn’t that era necessarily, but my husband grew up in a very small country town in Australia and the only way he could get access to music was to mail away for it. And as a teenager, isolated, not many friends, it was a lifeline for him. And I imagine that’s the kind of people you were sending music to.
Jane Rowe: Totally.
Mimi Kwa: How important [00:12:30] music is to our lives, to connection.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. And there were new releases and a huge selection. Yeah, totally.
Jo Stanley: I love that. Intersecting with people’s lives where you don’t even know what impact you’re having.
Mimi Kwa: Yeah, the connection that you’re making. And also to be working for a visionary so young and you didn’t know it at time.
Jane Rowe: Having no idea, that’s right. An absolute visionary.
Jo Stanley: Could you see, was he inspiring?
Jane Rowe: Yes. Nick Powell was the [00:13:00] other partner at that time. They were just so ahead of their time. Again, you take it for granted at the time, don’t you. You think, wow, this is cool, this is great. And I think the way he treated people, he treated people well. It was more than just the entrepreneurship. I think it was the interaction with people and his whole personality or the whole small team’s personality.
Mimi Kwa: Is that what you learned from him?
Jane Rowe: Yes, I think through osmosis, but without it being conscious at all. I think I [00:13:30] learned a huge amount. I think I learned a huge amount from my father as well. General kindness, treat people well.
Mimi Kwa: And then where did that initial job for Richard Branson or with his company, lead you in the music industry?
Jane Rowe: Well, I don’t know. It didn’t lead me that far in the music industry as such. Well, I worked there for some years and then that closed and he opened the first record hyper [00:14:00] supermarket in Oxford Street and I got offered a job. But I actually…
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:14:04]
Jane Rowe: … supermarket in Oxford Street, and I got offered a job, but I actually didn’t want to work in a shop as such. But by that point, my life was pretty out of control because they’d signed up the Sex Pistols to Virgin, punk was happening.
Mimi Kwa: So they were a label by now rather than just a mail order warehouse?
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. I sort of came in at the tail end of Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells, which really put Virgin on the map. And then he signed [00:14:30] up the Sex Pistols, no one else would touch them. And I was still working there, and I ended up just in addiction, basically, partying way too much and just having, well, a great time in the ’70s. But yeah, a fairly scary time if you look at it now.
Jo Stanley: What was the entree to that world though? Were you invited to a party? What was the moment that actually allowed you to enter that world?
Jane Rowe: I was mixing [00:15:00] with people anyway outside of that, friends of friends. We were always at festivals. And music was a huge influence in our life, so we were always at a festival or Finsbury Park, and we were taking acid, we were smoking dope. We were just really, really enjoying our freedom and experimenting with a lot of things. And then the working at Virgin just complimented that [00:15:30] because a lot of musicians, and then obviously with Sex Pistols in that era. We would just try any different drug. Life was for partying. No breaks.
Mimi Kwa: So you were having an awesome time, but at what point did you realize, oh gosh, this recreational fun that I’m having is now an addiction?
Jane Rowe: After I’d left Virgin, so I was no longer there, and that was when heroin took a much stronger grip on me. And I [00:16:00] was still working, surprisingly enough. I was working for a publisher at that point, but realizing I couldn’t get through a day unless I had heroin. I was absolutely in the grips of addiction. Still managing to function in one way and hiding it from my family, but it was slowly I was slipping downhill.
Jo Stanley: How old were you then?
Jane Rowe: 19, 20.
Mimi Kwa: Oh my gosh. So when did you start working with Richard Branson, if you’re only 19 or 20?
Jane Rowe: Well, yeah. I [00:16:30] would’ve started when I was 19, so maybe 21, 22 then, yeah.
Mimi Kwa: Still a baby.
Jane Rowe: I was still a baby experimenting, but my life was still quite in control. Although I remember him asking me if I was all right one time, which was very sweet. I went, “Yeah, I’m fine.” So he’d obviously seen, was a little bit concerned. But one could blend in quite well with all the people I was working with.
Jo Stanley: I was going to say, I imagine Richard’s seen a bit of that in his life.
Mimi Kwa: Rock and roll.
Jane Rowe: [00:17:00] Yeah. And it was very small, the company then as well, but it certainly got really out of control soon after I left.
Mimi Kwa: So do you think that point for many people with addiction and including yourself, is at that point of going from it being a social recreational use of drugs, any drug, and in your case it was heroin at this point, to it becoming very clandestine and you’re doing it on your own, and as you say, you can’t get through a day. Is there a tipping point [00:17:30] where you can look back and you’re like, oh, that’s the day or that’s the time? Or, is it not that cut and dry?
Jane Rowe: Yeah. I think you have a nagging feeling and you know, it’s a bit like going on a diet. You have a really big meal or you go, I’ve got to go on a diet and you have a really big meal. You go, yeah, I’ll go on the diet tomorrow. And I think it’s the same with drugs of addiction. You think, yeah, it’s a bit of a problem. I’ll have a bit more now, I’ll give up tomorrow. [00:18:00] And then I think it’s those times when you realize, actually I can’t. You have the best intention to give up and you can’t.
Mimi Kwa: You were so young, how did you give up?
Jane Rowe: How did I give up? Well, there were a few attempts to give up. Coming to Australia saved my life, ultimately. But I got into quite a bit of trouble, and then I had to go and live back home. I think in those days it was, my bail conditions were that I wasn’t allowed in London [00:18:30] except for therapy. I don’t know how they would’ve seen… “Oh, there she is.”
Jo Stanley: She’s obviously going to therapy.
Mimi Kwa: So when you say your bail conditions, so you were arrested?
Jane Rowe: Yeah, a few times. And the bail condition was I had to go home and live with my mom and only-
Jo Stanley: Arrested for use, for drug use?
Jane Rowe: Yeah.
Jo Stanley: Right.
Jane Rowe: Two or three times, there were a couple of court cases looming. And during that time I connected, this amazing [00:19:00] Indian doctor that worked in London. I was put on methadone and I would see her once a week. And she was just a pioneer. She was incredible. And I’d have to go and see her in her basement for check-in with her every week and she would organize whatever I needed for the week. And there was something about her attitude, it was so incredible. That was my first big step to recovery, [00:19:30] there were quite a few. But the way she treated me, and she didn’t treat me as special and this is up to you if you want it. It was what I needed. It was a very loving kick up the bum, really.
Mimi Kwa: So she was really your sliding door moment into a new life?
Jane Rowe: Without a doubt. Her approach to it was absolutely the first sort of sliding door moment. And then my brother took me to Italy skiing for a [00:20:00] week. He went, “Oh, Jane, you’re doing really well. Let’s go away for a week.” So we went skiing for a week, and while I was there, I met an Australian guy who was working there, and we got on really well, and I had to go back to England. He was working there for three months, said, “Oh, you should come back.” I went, “Yeah, yeah, maybe.” I went back to England and started going downhill again really fast. So [00:20:30] I got in touch with him. I said, “I’m going to come back over.” And I can remember it happened very, very quickly. I sold my stereo. I got a one-way ticket to Italy, and I took myself there.
Mimi Kwa: So were you in love with him?
Jane Rowe: Yeah, yeah.
Mimi Kwa: Is this who became your husband?
Jane Rowe: I mean, we spent probably two, three days together. I mean, I was only there for a week and I met [inaudible 00:20:52] on the second to last night. But we really engaged and sort of kept in touch. And then it was through meeting him that [00:21:00] was a huge sliding door moment that gave me someone to get out of England fast. And then I went and worked over there with him for the last two months. I worked in a little hotel over there. We got a little apartment together there.
Mimi Kwa: Do you think there are any coincidences in your story? Do you think that it’s by chance that you met him or do you think it was really meant to be?
Jane Rowe: Who knows?
Jo Stanley: But there was something about just being taken from that environment in London that was [00:21:30] really dangerous for you.
Jane Rowe: Totally. I mean, whether it was by chance or just incredible good fortune, who knows? Was it meant to be? Yes, it was. I mean, several people don’t get those opportunities, but for me, it was an absolute sliding door moment.
And we went back to England and then his father… I wanted to travel. I wanted to go South America. I wasn’t going to settle anywhere. And his father wasn’t well, so he [00:22:00] had to come back. And I remember him mentioning that to my father who said, “Take Janie with you. She’s going to die if she stays in London. I’ll pay for her ticket.” And I was like, “Well, I’ll come to Australia for a week, but then I’m going on to South America.”
Mimi Kwa: But for your father to have had that insight into your condition and how you were faring and that you really desperately needed to move away from all of these influences, [00:22:30] that’s amazing.
Jane Rowe: Yeah. And I’d been in quite a bit of trouble, and I’d been in clinics. I mean, they didn’t have clinics in those days, we’re talking a long time ago. So I was put in a clinic initially, which was really more for probably wealthy women alcoholics, and I can remember that vividly. And I went there and they gave me an injection and they put me to sleep for five days. And then it was, ” [00:23:00] Wake up, now you’ve been a very bad girl. You’re cured, off you go.”
Mimi Kwa: That’s amazing.
Jo Stanley: I really want to ask you about addiction because they’re not treating the cause of the addiction.
Jane Rowe: None of it. You were just really a very naughty, shameful-
Mimi Kwa: You’re just sedated and then your body will go through the detox.
Jane Rowe: Put to sleep.
Mimi Kwa: And that’s it.
Jo Stanley: Because this is where… And we will obviously speak at length about Mirabel, this extraordinary organization that you founded. The societal conversation around [00:23:30] addiction often saddens and angers me because I think it’s often from the basis of no kindness or understanding, but also the stigma comes from shame and not understanding people are dulling a pain.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. That’s exactly right.
Mimi Kwa: Yeah. You’re escaping from something.
Jo Stanley: Yeah. So what for you was the cause of the addiction?
Jane Rowe: I think one of it is probably just our disposition, personality. It’s the same thing, you can get a family of three, four, five siblings and one [00:24:00] will become addicted. And I think I was always told as a child, “Oh, you’re just too sensitive. Oh, you’re so sensitive.” So I think there’s an element of that. And as a child, my father was, he was really an alcoholic, a very functional one, and a very loving man and whatever. But we know memory is very unreliable. But my first memory is sort of standing up in my cot, crying, hearing him [00:24:30] going mad with anger downstairs. So I think there was a lot of that as a child, that relative trauma for me growing up very fearful of, “He’s going to hurt my mom, he’s going to hurt us. What’s happening?” And a lot of angst about that. And then you get layer upon layer of that.
But I would say that’s definitely where it came from. So for me, certainly [00:25:00] recreational drugs were fun. But the first time I tried heroin it completely took that angst out of my gut. Just I was settled. I was calm. I didn’t have those feelings.
Jo Stanley: That is so powerful to hear you say that, because I just think there’s a lack of willingness to understand someone who has an addiction because we all go, “Well, I can handle this. I’ve gone through worse. She came from a loving family. She’s just weak.” [00:25:30] And as you say, everyone is different and everyone has their own way of processing what they’ve gone through. And that constant angst in your gut.
Mimi Kwa: And also trying to reconcile this man, your father, who you were to some degree conditioned to be afraid of, but who also loved you very much, and then was there for you at the point where you were trying to pull yourself out of this addiction. So that even in itself is a very complex [00:26:00] thing to be able to process.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. And secrets. What went on in our home, stayed in our home. And I work with kids now, as you know, and it’s about bursting the secrets. I think shame, blame and secrets are three things that, oh.
Mimi Kwa: They’re poison.
Jane Rowe: They’re poison. Yeah.
Jo Stanley: So you came to Australia and did it save your life?
Jane Rowe: Yes. 100% it saved my life. So I came here [00:26:30] with a small overnight bag thinking I’m not going to stay long because I’m going to keep traveling. And here I am, 42, 43 years later. And I went straight from punk London… Well, I’d had that time in the mountains. But, I came straight from punk London to a massive sheep station in the Western District.
Mimi Kwa: Wow. What a contrast. What were you thinking?
Jane Rowe: I remember [00:27:00] arriving here and driving and going, wow, where am I? What’s happening? But it was the best thing for me. So we lived there for some months, we got married within the year, moved to Melbourne. I didn’t know anyone. So I could also redefine myself because-
Mimi Kwa: Yeah, reinvent yourself completely.
Jane Rowe: I had no one saying, “Oh, are you really okay? You still using drugs?” It’s liberating. I mean, it’s lonely [00:27:30] as well because you’ve got no old friend sharing your past, but it’s liberating. So you escape the shame.
Jo Stanley: Wow. You talk of shame, and I know that you have worked with Brene Brown who has just been instrumental in the conversation around shame. Can you speak to us about shame? Because we all live with it. How can we manage it? How do we process it?
Jane Rowe: How do we? Read one of Brene’s books I’d say.
Jo Stanley: Oh, it’s unbelievable. [00:28:00] Yeah.
Jane Rowe: Because I think it affects all-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:28:04]
Jane Rowe: Yeah, because I think it affects all of us to different things, and I think it takes quite a bit of work to go through, but we need to shift it. It’s like guilt and shame. What negative, punitive emotions are they? And I think they’re also interlinked with so many other emotions and anxiety. But I think the shame we feel and the shame we carry, and then you can [00:28:30] end up taking something to lessen that shame, whether it’s alcohol or addiction, because shame just consumes you.
And with shame comes the blame and that responsibility. And yeah, they’re very, very, very powerful emotions that I don’t think we need to carry. We need to revisit them and not be anxious about revisiting. Because often actually the anxiety about it is much worse than the real thing. And whether you [00:29:00] read one of her books or you have counseling or therapy, when we revisit it, it’s like, “Actually, yeah. I wasn’t that bad or that wasn’t that bad.” Or, “You’re not alone.” You are not alone.
Speaker 1: Everyone. We all think we’re the only ones who’ve done these terrible things.
Mimi Kwa: And also for you, you removed yourself from that environment where shame had been first cultivated in you. But not everybody can remove themselves [00:29:30] from their environment.
Jane Rowe: That’s right.
Mimi Kwa: And so that’s why it’s so important, the work that you’re doing, because you are helping people to sit with the emotion and creating frameworks to support people to stay within their culture, their extended families with the Mirabel Foundation and supporting them to live with that shame and work through it.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. And I was so fortunate [00:30:00] because I had privilege, I had love. It’s so much easier to work through all those things when we have that. But if you don’t have any of those resources and you’re surviving, you’re trying just to survive day by day. And perhaps no education, it is really, really hard. And yes, I work with children and their trauma, their loss is unbelievable. But then that’s compounded [00:30:30] with the shame or the blame of, “It’s my fault mommy died.” And children take on the blame anyway. I mean, children of divorced parents will think, “Was it me?” Let alone if you think you could have prevented mom or dad dying.
Mimi Kwa: [inaudible 00:30:49] responsible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we all do as children to just keep things together and want things and everybody else to be okay. I
Jane Rowe: Hope I’m not going off on a tangent. I’ve got a lovely… This is [00:31:00] one of my-
Mimi Kwa: We love tangents. [inaudible 00:31:03].
Jane Rowe: I just think this epitomizes, it’s one of my favorite stories with a Mirabel young girl we were working with and we work with different age groups after school. This young girl, she’s grown up and she wouldn’t mind me using her name. Lily was at one of these girls groups and her mom had died tragically, and she was being raised by a family member [00:31:30] and her dad had been in prison for a long time. And like all young kids, they can’t wait for the parent to get out of prison. Her memory, her childhood memories were of unbelievable domestic violence and that she was probably the cause of it and no happy memories. But with dad coming out of prison, that was going to make it okay.
So, one week she [00:32:00] goes, “Yeah, dad’s coming out this week, so when I see you next week, he’ll be out of prison, and he’s coming straight to see me.” And this is quite an frequent story. Dad comes out of prison and on his way to go and see Lily, he’ll stop for one hit. And he died. He overdosed because his tolerance was so down. So, he never made it to see Lily. She was obviously absolutely devastated. She said [00:32:30] to one of the Mirabel team, “We’ve got a small bag of dad’s possessions and I’m scared of opening them. Will you come home with me and will you go through them with me?”
And Kaylene said, “Yeah, of course I will.” So, they went back home and there were only a handful of items and she opened one and it was a book and written in the book, which the dad had written to Lily’s mum was saying, “I love you so much. [00:33:00] You’ve made me the happiest in the world, and I cannot believe we are going to have a child. And this is the most wonderful thing that could have happened to us.” And Lily read it and she started crying and Kaylene hugged her and she said, “No, Kaylene, they’re tears of happiness because now I know I was loved and they loved one another.” So, that is the power-
Mimi Kwa: The power, yeah.
Jane Rowe: … of love and the shame and [00:33:30] blame, just reading those words, lifted.
Mimi Kwa: Yeah, just ebbed away. Wow. That is just such an amazing story. And I know that an equally amazing story is the one around how you founded Mirabel and why you did.
Jane Rowe: Yes. I was working as a drug counselor because going back to the beginning when suddenly I had to find a job and I didn’t have any qualifications, [00:34:00] I thought the only thing I’m qualified to do is actually work with people with addiction because-
Mimi Kwa: My shorthand’s not great.
Jane Rowe: My shorthand not great. That’s exactly right. Well, I love people. And I worked as a drug counselor for many years and 25 years or so ago, because Mirabel has been going 25 years. I don’t know, I’m sure you may be well too young to remember, but the heroin was very strong. And on the front page of the paper, every day would be the [00:34:30] heroin fatality rate that was overtaking the road fatality and there were warnings everywhere. And my role at that point, I was working at Windana, which is an amazing rehab, still going. So, there’d be a waiting list and people needed a bed.
When people are in crisis, they need help now. They would come in and see me every week and go, “Jane, how far away till we can come?” And I go, “I’m so sorry. It’s still going to be another two, three weeks.” And one particular [00:35:00] day, four people I knew came in. I said, “I’m so sorry, there are still no beds.” And there were two young women, they had children and they said, “Well, we’re sick of this. We’re all going to go out and get stoned tonight. It’s been weeks.” I said, “Well, I can’t obviously stop you doing that, but if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to stay together as a group because the people that are dying and overdosing are those people that are using by themselves. Stay together in a group.”
They all went out, [00:35:30] they all got heroin, they all passed out, and two woke up and two didn’t. And the two who didn’t were young moms for children. So, I remember going to work the next day and being told that these two beautiful women had died. And I actually kind of felt redundant in my role at that point. I thought, until there are more services supporting people, how can we stop young people needlessly dying? I went to the funeral of one of the young moms and I’d [00:36:00] got to know her 6-year-old little boy pretty well. And he was at the funeral with emergency care workers because mom’s drug use had so fragmented the family, she’d had no contact with her biological family for years. They didn’t even know that she had a child.
And he’s sitting there by himself with a worker sort of on each side. And as they lowered mom’s coffin, he went running up going, “Where are you putting my mommy?” [00:36:30] And he was taken away with these workers. And he had lost all love, sense of belonging in that moment. And because he had no family, his future was going to be, he would be put in emergency care and then move from home to home until a permanent home could be found. He lost all sense of belonging history at that moment.
And without a doubt, he was going to be far more likely to use drugs later for that [00:37:00] acute pain and that feeling of bereavement or attempt suicide. And it was that image. So, lay awake all night thinking, “We’ve got to do something about… No one thinks about the children.” Everyone has a stereotype of a drug user being down and out in the street. Addiction doesn’t discriminate.
Mimi Kwa: And again, it’s a shame and blame from society.
Jane Rowe: Totally. That’s right? I thought, well, we need to raise awareness in the media. [00:37:30] So, when people start reading about someone tragically overdosing, perhaps the next thought will be, “I wonder if they have children. I wonder if their children are okay.” It was a very small idea. And I know a lot of musicians and wonderful generous-hearted people, I said, “Do you think we could do a benefit gig just to raise awareness on the children that got left behind?” It’s not about saying any one [00:38:00] of us have our lives together. It’s not about drug laws or anything. This is about the children.
And they all said yes. And we ended up having a two night who’s who concert. But in that time, between the idea and the concert happening, we’d done research and we established Mirabel because we found there is no service and let’s start providing a service for the kids that get left behind. It was a small idea and it’s kept growing for 25 [00:38:30] years. I ran it from home for the first 18 months. But there’s such a need for that, that it’s been a very organic process. I never started going, “Right, we’re going to build a big not-for-profit,” whatever. It’s like, “Where are we needed? What doesn’t exist? Let’s make a difference to 1, 2, 1000, 5000 children’s lives if we can.
Mimi Kwa: It’s so incredible that hearing your story, it just sounds as though everything that came before in your [00:39:00] life has just led you to this purpose and helping others and helping survivors of parents with addiction and their extended families. It’s just incredible. You are helping through mentoring programs, but you’re also, fascinatingly to me, you are helping newborn babies.
Jane Rowe: Yes. Well, we did originally. I mean, it’s very independent now, but in the very early years, wonderful [00:39:30] woman who was a nurse, and she was the one that actually set this program up. But we realized that babies that are born addicted cry a lot. They’re very agitated, and nursing staff don’t have the time to hold them. And often they were young moms that didn’t stay in the hospital, they were in crisis themselves. And babies can die from not being touched or we definitely know that touching babies in the beginning, it forms the brains pathways. [00:40:00] It’s very, very critical.
And then you look at the other end and old people can die from not being touched. They’re lonely. So, we devise this program, a Cuddle of Baby program, which was started at the Royal Women’s where older people in the community come in and they’re just there to hold the babies. They’re not there to do anything else. They’re just there to hold the babies. And that program, I think is national now, it’s absolutely taken off. But [00:40:30] yes, we started that or Rosalie Akari who worked with us, that was her thing. And she worked for months and months to get the whole thing happening. And it’s so simple. I mean, it’s such a simple thing that can be so life changing.
Mimi Kwa: So life changing. People in the later years of their life with a newborn baby. What better pairing could you have?
Jane Rowe: That’s right. Yeah. And both just benefiting enormously from that, just general kindness.
Speaker 1: A lot of [00:41:00] what Mirabel does is stepping in where the services aren’t there. Sort of a safety net for those that fall through the cracks. In particular, perhaps the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles who are now carers of these kids who don’t get a lot of support.
Jane Rowe: No.
Mimi Kwa: And don’t know their rights.
Jane Rowe: Absolutely. And that was when we first did our research as to where we didn’t want to duplicate an organization, so let’s really look at where we can be the most powerful. And that’s when we found [00:41:30] out that if you’re what they call a kinship carer, so a blood relative extended family, you’re not eligible for government support. I mean, there are ways around it now, but it is not clear cut at all. And a very common scenario-
Mimi Kwa: What, a government department doesn’t make it easy?
Jane Rowe: No-
Mimi Kwa: [inaudible 00:41:52] surprising.
Jane Rowe: You think I’m fibbing, don’t you? So, we do a lot of lobbying and advocacy because actually [00:42:00] kinship care has overtaken and foster care now because obviously if you look at-
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Jane Rowe: … Kinship care is overtake and foster care now because obviously if you look at mental health issues and drug use, and they’re so interlinked and family, but we are still fighting to get equitable support for grandparents. And when I first started working at Mirabel, it was, I’d worked with people in the grips of addiction and it was so different. I would then get a call from a grandparent, and the classic scenario [00:42:30] is, knock on the front door. There might be a policeman saying, “Your daughter tragically died last night. Here are your 3, 4, 5 grandchildren. Will you take them?” “Yes, I will.” Having no idea that she actually wouldn’t get any support for that. And we would get a call. So we would go and visit in the home and she might not even have a washing machine and you’ve got a baby there. Because that generation [00:43:00] of very proud are not used to asking for things, which is why we would go to the homes.
They’d go, “Look, no, I’m okay. I just want a bit of advice.” And they’re as poor as a church mouse trying to feed… And children that are traumatized. And then with the grandparents, their friends drift away because suddenly you are back there looking after kids or having to be at a kindergarten. We’ve worked with kids that have been dropped off at kindergarten and never [00:43:30] picked up. And so the abandonment issues for the children, and we don’t say where a child should be placed. That’s not up to us. But if it’s appropriate, keeping siblings together, keeping families together has to be the very best option. So yes, we will do whatever it takes to keep that family together and support them all.
Mimi Kwa: And tell us about a… Because we’re talking about some very heavy real circumstances, but at [00:44:00] the end of the rainbow, have there been some beautiful stories of kids coming through your support care, coming back, helping others?
Jane Rowe: So many. So many. I was with this amazing young woman last week. I had to do a fundraising event, and she’s up there talking with me. We have got young people working at Mirabel. We have got young people volunteering at Mirabel. [00:44:30] And that’s what’s so powerful because we’ve got young adults now running those kids groups that they used to be part of. And we all know there’s nothing as powerful as talking to someone who’s walked in our shoes. So for these young kids, to see these young adults now, to be able to go, “I was just like you.” That is so powerful. And for the grandparents too, it is so encouraging [00:45:00] for them to see these empowered, amazing young people. And it gives them so much hope too, that, “Wow, you’ve got to this point.” So every day there are wonderful stories, wonderful achievements. We’ve got young women professional soccer now scholarships. Oh, yeah.
Mimi Kwa: Amazing.
Jo Stanley: It is extraordinary. And you know what I see, and Mimi, you connected all of the things that have led [00:45:30] you, Jane, to this moment. And I feel like I see you as a baby in that court, and you, through time, are healing her by healing these babies that you’re working with now.
Jane Rowe: That’s beautiful, Jo. I’d never actually thought of that, but thank you.
Mimi Kwa: Yeah, you really have. You’ve found a way to stop some very negative, harmful cycles and create new, beautiful cycles within your community [00:46:00] at the Mirabel Foundation. It’s really profoundly beautiful. We are just so, so grateful to have you here with us. And I’m going to segue now after our little positive note from you into our origin story. So every episode we have an origin story, which is loosely related to our guests. So I was thinking about the Mirabel Foundation and all of the work that you do. I was thinking about you going to boarding school when you were a [00:46:30] girl. So I’m going to now take you back to the 25th of September 1850. None of us were there then. Don’t worry. But just imagine.
Jo Stanley: Thanks for the clarification.
Jane Rowe: I was going to say, “I’m not that old.”
Jo Stanley: So the intention is this is an origin story of something very well known, and it’s a lovely lesson to just go, “Oh wow, whoever imagines that from such a little thing, a big thing can grow.” So here we are.
Mimi Kwa: Yes. And you don’t have to guess [00:47:00] what it is. I’m just going to take you on a little journey. So it’s the 25th of September 1850. And a little baby girl, Mary Alice Smith is born near Liberty in Union Country, Indiana, where she lived on a small farm with her parents. But by the time she was 10, her father was in prison and her mother had died. And so little Mary Alice was considered to be an orphant, and it was an orphant with a T [00:47:30] at the end because orphant is the old word for orphan. And so orphant is now obsolete. That’s just a little bit of an origin story of a word.
Jane Rowe: Thanks.
Mimi Kwa: Anyway, Mary went into care with her uncle, extended family, where she worked alongside his family to earn her board. And in the evening, she would tell stories to the younger children, including her cousin, who was called James Riley. And she was treated as part of the family, and they nicknamed [00:48:00] her Allie. Now 35 years later, James Riley, the little boy to whom Allie read bedtime stories, wrote a poem about Allie called The Elf Child. But then he changed the poem’s name to Little Orphan Ally. But then there was a typesetting error. And in publication, the poem changed to Little Orphan Annie. And so the comic strip was inspired, and in the movies and in the Broadway show. And Allie herself didn’t actually learn that she [00:48:30] was the inspiration for any of this until 1910, when she visited her cousin who wrote the poem, and by then she was 60 years old. Isn’t that amazing.
Jo Stanley: I love that.
Mimi Kwa: Yeah. So Little Orphan Annie came from Allie, and there was a typesetting error. So you just never know. And was that meant to be?
Jo Stanley: Well, I mean, people’s lives inspire so many things like literature and music and all that, [00:49:00] but the fact that she was seen like she told this story and he remembered you and your experience and took that into what he wrote, that’s lovely.
Mimi Kwa: And it’s all interconnected. And I think with your story, Jane, as you said, Jo, the little baby crying in the cot to what you are doing now, that story is extraordinary. And we don’t often see all of the links in our stories until later. Allie was 60 when she realized [00:49:30] that her own story had inspired this comic strip, which later, and she wouldn’t have known then went on to be a household name.
Jo Stanley: I don’t know the story of Little Orphan Annie though, do you?
Mimi Kwa: Annie.
Jo Stanley: Oh, it’s Annie?
Mimi Kwa: Annie.
Jo Stanley: Oh, it’s actually Annie?
Mimi Kwa: Annie. Oh my gosh.
Jo Stanley: Oh my God. It’s literally my favorite ever musical.
Mimi Kwa: The musical, the movies.
Jo Stanley: I love that.
Mimi Kwa: Sorry. I wasn’t clear enough.
Jo Stanley: No, I didn’t know. My mom used to say, “You look like a little Orphan Annie when I was growing up.” But I didn’t connect that with Annie [00:50:00] the musical.
Mimi Kwa: Yes. So Little Orphan-
Jo Stanley: The sun will come out tomorrow.
Mimi Kwa: Yes.
Jo Stanley: I didn’t know.
Mimi Kwa: So Little Orphan Annie was a poem. Well, first it was a girl called Alice, Mary Alice, who then was nicknamed Allie. Then it was a poem, then it was a comic strip, then it was a movie, and then it was a musical. Or maybe it was a musical then a movie. I don’t know.
Jane Rowe: But it still plays regularly, doesn’t it?
Mimi Kwa: It does.
Jo Stanley: I love that movie too.
Mimi Kwa: And now we know the origin.
Jo Stanley: Wow. I love that. Music, it sparked my interest when you were talking about music.
Mimi Kwa: [00:50:30] And it did bring it back to music too.
Jo Stanley: Yeah.
Jane Rowe: It had everything in it.
Jo Stanley: Well, that’s it, Jane, I wonder, music was such a huge part of your life. Is there a song or a line in a song that you remember from that time that perhaps has shaped you a bit?
Jane Rowe: If you want to get to heaven, you need to raise a bit of hell.
Mimi Kwa: Brilliant.
Jo Stanley: It’s brilliant. And I bet you have come up against some opposition in Maribel, and you’ve just raised hell.
Jane Rowe: You need to [00:51:00] disrupt, don’t we? To get things change. Not always, but we need to be able to disrupt if we want to shake things up and improve things.
Mimi Kwa: So Jane, at the end of every chat on A to Be, we like to ask, what is your sense of being? What is your B. You’ve arrived in your purpose, what is it to be in your purpose with the Mirabel Foundation, and as Jane Rowe?
Jane Rowe: Just be kind.
Jo Stanley: [00:51:30] Simple, isn’t it?
Jane Rowe: It’s simple. I remember my mom, who I adored, she’d always say, “Darling, just be kind.” And I think ultimately we all just need to be kind.
Mimi Kwa: Thank you, Jane.
Jo Stanley: Thank you for your kindness being with us here today. We’ve loved it.
Jane Rowe: Absolute pleasure. A treat. Thank you for having me.
Jo Stanley: Wow. Jane is just breathtaking, isn’t she?
Mimi Kwa: Yeah. She’s so amazing, Jo.
Jo Stanley: And if you would like to [00:52:00] support Mirabel Foundation, just head to mirabelfoundation.org.au. I know that it would mean a lot to Jane and the young people that they support. And as always, we say thanks for listening. Check out the other great episodes in this series and also series one.
Mimi Kwa: Do Not forget series one.
Jo Stanley: Mimi, do you have a favorite?
Mimi Kwa: They are all my favorite, Jo.
Jo Stanley: Of course.
Mimi Kwa: Of course. But if you’re going to put me on the spot and I have to choose one, I’m going to say Amy Wang, script [00:52:30] writer for Crazy Rich Asians 2. She has so many amazing stories. She had me at Gwyneth Paltrow, but actually her journey from A to Be is so much more than the glamour of Hollywood. Just wait till you check out her story. If you’d like to leave us a review, that would be super helpful. We would love that. And also follow us @atobepodcast.
Jo Stanley: And also, if you want to check out the show notes for this episode and all the others, go to broadradio.com.au/atobepodcast. [00:53:00] And finally, if you are interested in radio for women by women, hit that subscribe button on broadradio.com.au to stay in touch with our growth.
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