How Robin Bailey Survived Repeated, Unimaginable Loss

I lay on that floor in my walk in wardrobe and I cried and I cried, and then I just thought, no one's coming.

No one's going to come and.

Sweep you up and drive you off, Like get up, girl, get your big girl pants on, and start moving, because those kids need you, and you need to be okay.

You need to believe you're okay.

Robin Bailey is one of those voices you feel like, you know if you've ever listened to her on the radio, and you might not even realize that you have, you'll know what I mean. She's warm, she's funny, she's incredibly open. She has this way of making people feel like they're not alone. And now she's written a memoir, Flamingo's Aren't Born Pink, which tells the story of her life. It's a life that's been shaped by some extraordinary highs and some very very very deep losses. Robin lost her father

Say that only one that says that my love WI lave me.

To no filter.

Thank you.

I know you'll have no problem with the no filter part of no filter no because I have just read your extraordinary book, Oh my goodness, extraordinary memoir, Flamingo's Aren't Born Pink, my family's story of healing, hope and living life in color, and you just missed actually me gassing you up to Bree, our producer, because I was saying I was going to do as I always do if someone's written a book. I always read the book, but sometimes you read and sometimes you like reading for context

Kay, You're only the third person outside of the process who has actually given me honest feedback apart from my mind.

But my mum loves it. And loves me and loves my children. So thank you. That's just amazing.

It's so frank as in points to be alarming, like it really is, but it also encompasses really eloquently your life journey and what it has entailed and what it is that you've experienced that is I think unique to you, the grief that you have known and a word that's used a lot resilience, but that we sense the joy of you and what you did for your three boys.

Aren't they the best? Though? I'm so proud that they finished the book.

They each had their own say, Like That's the thing I just loved the most because they agreed to do it and I didn't. There was no pushing for me. This was a genuine, honest they said, no, Mum, we want to have our say. And that's what I love the most about it, I think because it is our story over the last ten years.

And it's a huge story and all of you, I have to say, a pink flamingo. But what were you when you were born? What color were you?

Wow? I think I was like a little white. Have you seen the cute little videos on YouTube? I watch a lot of animal videos and there's little flamingos with really long legs, like a splattering.

Around in a pond.

I was very sporty as a young kid, and I think I was a bit awkward. I'm dyslexic, so I found the world a little bit of a foreign place, and I didn't do very well in school. So I feel like I do associate with a baby flamingo that's like looks at its pink potential, but isn't quite there yet.

And yet you obviously potential is an interesting word because you've gone on to have an extraordinary career. Now people outside of Brisbane, and I'm from Brisbane might not know you. There literally would be no one in Brisbane that doesn't know you because you've had You've been in radio there for decades and you've had extraordinary success in radio. And also you've been very open about sharing with your listeners the pain and tribulations that have befallen you.

Yes, yeah, I guess that's true.

What do you think equipped you to be a communicator? Like you say you're dyslexic, but you're so articulate. Your written word is also articulate, and you're an expert communicator.

Well, I came from a family of women.

So my father died of a heart attack when I was eleven, and I was fifth generation single mom, And in all of the situations, it was never the choice of my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, and you know, my grandmother was the eldest of two daughters, my mother was the eldest of two daughters. My sister is the eldest of two daughters. And there was only women in my life. Literally, I mean, no grandfather, no brother's, nothing. So I think women have an innate sense of communication.

And I you know, my.

Mom's a very practical black and white person, so I think I am. My sister's quite similar to my mom. So I think I felt like that was my place in the family that and you know, when you go through a profound grief, like Dad put us to bed that night, and then I was woken by Mom saying

And I feel like that's how I learned to live.

And because schooling was really tough for me, I just went, well, if I can sense someone, and if I can read a person, then that's going to give me a greater understanding, where the other things that I do aren't as easy.

Like developing another sceense.

Yeah, I think so.

And I think radio really provided that for me too, because it's interesting. You don't see the people that you broadcast to, but you can feel them.

I can feel them.

You know, there's a when you actually just have someone in your ears. I think there's an essence to them that I often can pick up, particularly if it's a deeper conversation.

Yeah, and I think that's how I've learned to live life.

When you say you found school difficult, where was school? Where did you grow up?

I went to Abbotsford Primary School. I lived in the inner West of Sydney. We grew up at a time where it was not trendy. Let me tell you all the fruit and fish and chip shop owners of five Dot bought in abbots Fit and the Parramatta River stunk. We had the quarantine station just around the corner.

It was not you know, it was and it was a great place to grow up.

I grew up on a caulder sac like there was a park down the bottom and then the river. So I went to Abbotsford Primary School and then I went to Concord High.

I was very.

Lucky that my mum was in a big a world traveler and a really curious person, and so in the year ten I went and became an exchange student in America for twelve or for nine months, and then I came back, and then I went overseas for a couple of years, but I went in after I came back from America, I went to Glennie In which was a Rudolph Steiner school in middle in Sydney. So I went from a very kind of inner West to Concord High to Steiner and then I got into UNI at A

Me because of the reading and the writing.

Just the reading and the comprehension it took. It scared me and when I because I'm old. When I was going through you could have a choice between a cadet chip and.

UNI degree. So I chose a cadetship and practical. Yeah. So I went out to Burke, to two W E B.

Burke in far western New South Wales, and it was a great place to start because even though it had the biggest broadcasting area went into Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, there were three thousand people in that town and if you said the wrong thing, they rise.

Did you ever the.

Job I hate, like talking about cotton farming and all the water issues around?

Yes?

Yeah, yeah things a lot of the time.

But you know, it taught me that words have consequence and radio stories have people listening, and that they care, and that if you want to say something, you better be able to back it up and to be really respectful, be really respectful of people.

There's nothing like a drunk gun on a Friday coming into the pub seeking you out is not happening. What you said about his water intake?

Yeah, you're going to speak some truths, right And then so you found yourself in Brisbane with it like a very unusual after a bit of you know, ping ponging around with a very unusual package of talents, so behind the microphone and in producing and with a new scenes, and then you found yourself in front of the mic and that proved to be magic.

That's exactly true.

And you've got to understand that when I started, you know, there weren't women on air a lot.

There weren't a lot of women on air. There weren't very many of us at all.

So what era? So is this nineties nineties?

Like I was.

I was absolutely the laughing track for Jamie Dunn, God.

Bless his soul.

I grow, yeah, I grow.

Like part of my job was to laugh at his jokes. And my friends used to always, you know, give me a nudge every now and then, going oh yeah, I heard your fake laugh ten times in your laugh you know.

Was I think there was even a comedy sketch about laughing girl in radio right.

That was the laughing girl in Radio right.

And you know it'd come off the back of being a barrel girl on Hey hey, Like for my feminist mother and grandmother, that must have been hard to swallow.

But yeah, like I think that was the.

Way I could see in and I was always of the belief you've got to be in it to change it.

And there's you know, my sister is much more.

My sister Pip is this extraordinary activist, but she, you know, agitates from the outside, whereas I'm much more, you know, get in there, make them, make them like you make them, you know, just be that a squeaky wheel. And that's you know, I don't know how to do anything else, and I've been doing it for thirty seven years.

It's funny though, but because you you obviously loved it and you were drawn to it, and mostly what you you love and you're drawn to, you don't sit there going I want to get in and change this thing. I love when I'm drawn too. So what was it that you loved even before you became aware that it needed some tweaking to accommodate women and the future.

I think I always wanted to be a meetia. I used to laugh that I wanted to be the next youn event on a you know, back in the day, on a current affair.

But I thought that radio was all about storytelling.

And you know, one of the things I saw from my mother and my grandmother, who were both aucas that storytelling was such an amazing thing within our society and culture and that, and I just looked at radio and thought, there are so many opportunities here, and one of which is there aren't any women telling.

A lot of stories. And particularly in the commercial business.

You got to you got to separate ABC to commercial because they're very different beasts. Really Okay, well, on the outside they have been different. I haven't worked for the ABC, but I see that they have more quotas for women and that kind of stuff.

And also I think highly prescriptive now, probably more so than ever. I think there's probably very little freedom for a broadcaster. Whereas you stepped into a space and you claimed your freedom. So when you were broadcasting, was there when you first started behind the mic? Was there a moment that you can remember where you told a story or you shared something that was slightly unusual, that actually where the world rose to meet you and you went, oh, that's it.

I think it was.

And you know, I cannot I cannot underestimate or you know, downplay the impact that Jamie Dunn and An Skippon had on my I spent ten years with them. And you know, one of the great things about kind of being considered the laugh track is that you can listen and learn, and I did that, and what I think I learned from Jamie was that, you know, he could take one simple idea and craft this incredible story and he could take you on this journey of highs and lows and

And I'm fine with both of them.

That's actually every woman in every public facing woman.

Really, Yeah, that's true. That's true.

But for those that criticize me, it's that I'm too emotional, right, because of course you can't actually be great at something without someone tearing you down. But I learned really early on that because my father had died so young, and that I'd been forced into very deep emotional conversations at such a young age, I wasn't frightened of them, right, But you weren't hearing them, you weren't experiencing what people

There was another then dimension to the exchange.

And it wasn't all terrible.

In fact, that's the other thing I think I've learned very early on that's also quite important. And I hope this comes through in the book that I don't ever want people to read this and want to walk away and like throw it into cornugo. That's just so sad and depressing. Every story must be lined with hope. If we don't have hope as human beings, regardless of what situation we're in, particularly in this global crisis that we're in now, then you kind of want to give up.

So when you that is very striking in fact, and that does come through in the book that you have. You have. I think the you've got the energizer Bunny, as as your emotional default setting, which is that you feel the shock, but then you get up. You get up, and you not only get up, but you rise.

I think I remember very clearly after Tony died and I was just so overwhelmed.

I just couldn't.

I looked at these young boys nine twelve and fourteen, and I thought, you know, I was the breadwinner in the family, but Tony was the primary caregiver. He had told me many times that I didn't get the boys as much as him, because you know, he was their dad and they were boys and I only came from

So to contextualize what you're talking about, this was your husband, your first husband, Tony, and you'd been together, was fin your eldest fourteen at the time, Yes, yeah, and you had the marriage had run its course or you had realized for you that you could no longer stay in the marriage. Yep, And both of you were very outgoing and community minded people like I love the stories in the book. You paint a really beautiful picture of who Tony was, a very engaged like I loved the he

I highly recommend it if anyone wants to start a great idea, unless, of course, your rubbish collection is at.

You know, four am and he was struggling with you needing to leave the marriage. M definitely, as is often the case, but this was so unexpected that he would take his own life, that he would do it in the family home.

Yeah, I look, I think, I you know, I've spoken. I've done a lot of therapy, as have my kids. But it's it's usually not the people you're expecting, you know, it's often not always but to do to go through with it, I mean, as I've spent nearly eleven going on to twelve years coming to terms with that choice, I mean, I do, I do see that it takes a huge amount I always say courage, but a huge amount of balls to actually go through with it, like, so, yeah, it was a shock a lot.

And I don't think anyone thought he would he did.

You know, he had made attempts and by that I say he'd done quite public things, so he'd he'd had some overdose of pills that had made him fall asleep, but he went and did it in a public park and then he you know, things like that, which you know now I kind of look back on it. At the time he said, oh, he'd accidentally taken medication, Like, yeah, I'm a pretty astute person and I did not see that coming, and I.

Or did anybody else. And he had a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues, very active in the boys sporting worlds, like nobody saw it.

He had a group of men around him because he was really struggling with our separation, and they were like his gang of five, and they would check in on him and make sure that, you know, just to kind of have beers and touch point and none of them, none of them sort of this coming.

After the break, Robin shares the moment she had to tell her three boys their father had died and then you were placed because of his suicide in the situation where you had to the boys had to come home from school. You had to talk your boys through what you had to tell them what had happened. And it's interesting you talk about how I think it was Chines's dad that was like, don't tell don't tell them what, don't tell them what happened? Say it was a heart attack.

Well, there was enough of me to go.

That doesn't feel right instinctively, But then I rang his counselor because he had been very engaged with counseling. We'd been together, he'd been separately, I'd been separately, and that pool Man, like I do remember that phone call of just going I'm really sorry, and thank goodness he picked up. I just said, I'm sorry to tell you this toiny has taken his own life. My children are coming home.

He said, be age appropriate, but be honest. And in that moment I went Okay, I have to.

I have to tell them what was going on, but you know, age appropriate for a nine year old versus age appropriate for fourteen. I didn't want to tell them separately, and I had to do it in a way that I felt was going to be okay for them, also knowing what it felt like for my mum to wake me early one morning to tell me my father had died, so I yeah, I just thought, okay. And you know what is really interesting, and I do say this to anyone with parenting children through trauma.

That decision changed how my son saw me.

And it was the mantra that I used as subsequently subsequent things happened, and particularly things that desperately disappointed them, is they knew I would be honest. And I can't tell you how significant that is as a parent for children who are by birthright going to distrust everything. At age fourteen sixteen, they knew their mum would tell them the truth. And I think I'm really grateful for that moment. Honestly, I am of just sitting them down and saying, quite simply,

Who reacted first, can you remember.

Yeah, And they reacted very differently. My nine year old Piper was just kind of confused. My eldest son was just bewildered in and I had feared my eldest and I'd also been told that to get people around that they trusted, so I called in their godparents. So he looked at his godfather Dash, who was also one of Tony's five Men, like this is a joke.

What is this?

Dash?

Sort this out? Like what is going on?

And my middle son, Lou was really angry, like just like what are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous, And so he probably was the most vocal and then it just sort of the air went out of the room and it just yeah, like it took some time to process, and by time I probably made thirty seconds or so.

In that moment, I think, yeah.

It sets you on an extraordinary path. Obviously an uncharted path, but mostly And when I was reading the book, I was reminded oddly of Lockdown, because I was thinking, most children grow up with their parents editing themselves, and we do that, you know consciously, or life plays a part because of logistics and sports and obligations and busyness and work. So your kids get an edited version of you in Lockdown,

I think I went back to that original point, beage appropriate, but be honest, I didn't know how to do it, like I didn't like and Tiny was the keeper of all of our paperwork.

We were in massive debt. I did change afterwards, which I didn't know. There are a lot of like line sighting reveals and I just didn't. I don't know that I could have put a front up. And you know the thing, and I do get whenever I do public speaking, and I do get asked a lot about parenting, and I think it's so relevant for this current generation of you know parents. Like coming through in our age is we don't trust our children to see the world as

However, that doesn't mean that I'm not telling them.

I'm not going through crap like it's okay to say one and this is what I did. I'm not having a great day. I don't know if I can cook tonight. I'm fine, there's nothing wrong. I'm just overwhelmed and I'm tired.

They are as you've described them in the book, you know, the eldest, the wilding, raging against the machine, middle child, the sweet youngest. Yeah, but what they also had to contend with was that their mother lived in the public eye, and that your work involved sharing yourself.

And you know, if there's anything that I'm not a big believer in regrets, but I think if there's anything I could have done differently, it might have been that. But then every time I go into that for myself, I think, how would I have done it? You know, Like I was on radio for I don't know what twenty years before this happened, even you know, a bit more,

I don't know how else to, you.

Know, And so I dealt with it in our like ninety seventy three crew Way and Ruth, our executive producer, is still one of my best friends, so she could really help me navigate this.

When they asked what you were intending to do? Were they asking that because they were scared of what you were going to do or was it a top a question.

No, I think there was probably a bit of fear.

Because most Breakfast shows are upbeat.

And if you you know, you can still see it on YouTube. There was there was a day that I came back, which was at the five week, and then there was twelve months on and that first day back, I said, you know, I don't want to be defined by this, even though it obviously obviously has, but I don't want it to be the you know, I wanted to come to work and have some fun.

I wanted to, you know, like.

Be distracted from the crab because I then had to go home and deal with it still so and I don't like misery enjoys company.

I didn't want that.

I didn't want our show to now become something about the dead husband society. But I also didn't want it to be something that was avoided, and it was why I consciously didn't attach myself to beyond blue or suicide places, because I'm thinking, I don't I don't know who I am in this. I just know I have I want to be Robin Bailey on the radio. And look, there were absolutely times where Sarah Burrellis's Brave was a.

Song that had just come out and that was a real trigger for me.

And there were times where that song would go on and then I'd have to just sort of take a minute. And my guys never made mention of it. They just would keep going right right. But you know, there is a capacity, as you would well not kate. You know, you can put on a clown nose and get out and do it. That's that's our job.

Although that's showbies. There's no people like show people. They smile when they are down. That's the That's the thing. When you were waking in the morning, and when you were leaving the house and you were leaving the boys, how was that?

Oh?

Oh, you know, And this is in the book till I'm a very spiritual person and I just have to believe there's something greater than myself, and I would rely on that quite heavily. So I wipe my and I still do to this day, I white light myself every morning. I kind of I just I put us bin on what my intention is for the day.

Today is going to be a great day.

And if I'm feeling really crappy, okay, I'm gonna get through this with a smile on my face, Like I don't. I try and be my authentic self, but I also try and do it in a hopeful positive way, because I just don't feel like I want to impart my crap. If someone asks, or if there is a genuine heart to heart conversation, totally different. And what I think happened with our show that really resonated was that I opened a door for a conversation about grief, which I don't

Talk about death.

We don't Western society, we don't have rituals around death all those things we really need. And so I think I just by being really authentic and honest, I just was like, Okay, today's a shitty day, and I'm sorry, and I'm going to get better and it will be better. Give me five minutes and then I go out white like myself come back in and off we go.

I'm struck by the power of suicide that it throws ripples into the pond, different ripples than the normal death, which, like you said, we're not societally equipped to have these rituals with it, but we are familiar with it. Suicide seems like it almost leaves the people behind to do the work.

Oh.

Absolutely. You know. The number one question is why?

And you know it's funny in the book, I wonder, and you know, from an editorial perspective, I wonder if I catch myself up a bit about the why question, because sometimes I'm like, you can't you know, there is no answer, But then I still challenge myself on that, you.

Know, but you're always looking. That's the nature of because humans are only life and death. That's all we have. So if someone has opted out of life and chosen death, those remaining have to ask why.

Yeah.

And for the boys, you know, like I and I, it's taken me a long time and this book was really helps Lank Cathartic. I was hell bent on presenting Tony as I believed he was, not just my experiences of him.

If that's the if you understand the differentiation.

This book is my boy's book and my book, and those boys loved him so much and he loved them. My responsibility is to make sure that he is seen as a complete human.

I hope that through and what you.

Read in the book is my part of that demise from his perspective. And the prologue opens with it being pretty brutal on myself. And that took a long time to really hone in on because I'm like, you need to sit here, and if Tony was writing this, what would he say about you? And I went back and back and back because it would have been angry, particularly the end of his life, it would have been really vitriolic. So I wanted to make sure that he was presented in a way that was good so the kids could

You not only did that for Tony, like you've presented him as a very well rounded human, but you also do you put the blow torch on yourself. And there's a chapter. This was the first chapter. I think that when I was reading this book and I went this, do you know what chapter I'm going to talk about. It's about the affair. The affair. Oh my goodness, this is your affair. You wrote about how you had an affair before your marriage was over, and that you told

Yeah I did.

And you know again, and I say this very clearly, and I have I really want to protect the innocent here, and by innocent I mean the people. I don't identify anyone, and I don't want to. They know who they are. I'm sure they'll get a copy of the book. I'm sure their family will too, But I really you know, the thing about making choices in life, regardless of what they are, you have.

To own them.

And I don't want to, you know, make excuses for anything other than saying I know what I did and the consequences of that were diabolical to the people I.

Love the most, which are my children.

But also what I would say is that Tony made a choice to take his own life, which had another consequence that the innocent people, again were our children. We are because we're human and we make mistakes. But you know, you started by asking about suicide, and that's the problem. It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And we often, I mean not as much now because it's nearly twelve years, but we have spoken a lot about where would Dad

It's forever now for those boys.

Do you think, Robin, that there's an element of wanting to hurt in it?

Oh? Me? Oh?

He wrote on the mirror, goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend. It was like dramatic in my favorite red lipstick. The things that were open in the car that he'd so lovingly built with his children and his best mate was our favorite wedding photo. The album was open at that.

Yeah.

And I think I genuinely feel and I talk a bit about this from my spiritual perspective as well. I think he wanted to say to the world, look what she's doing to me, Look how much she's hurting me. Look what this has taken me too. I don't think for a minute he meant to do it.

I don't.

I think the way he timed it was that I would come home, or he'd save himself, like he'd try and save himself and get to a point and then But you know, that's the thing, is that it's didn't happen like that.

Coming up, Robin reveals the chapter of her book she was most afraid to write and what it cost her. How were the boy when they read So they've read your manuscript obviously, and they've each had their own chapter. As you said at the end, how would they when they read about the affair.

Well, there's a couple of things to say about that. They didn't read the book until after they'd finished their chapters.

Ah, that's right. That person took them through to get there.

So go writ Yeah, a ghost writer read my manuscript and then asked them specific questions. Then they worked their manuscript their chapters up, and then before anything was published, they then read my manuscript and were able to change whatever they wanted.

But no, no, no, they knew about the affair.

Cape I had to sit down when the paper approached me to say that his father had gone to the paper and they were going to put it on the front page of the Sunday Mail.

I had to sit them down and tell them.

So I told them as a fifth dean thirteen and ten year old, like, well, actually he was eleven by that stage. Like they've known, they've known for a long time.

So when you speak about that, you acknowledge the shame that you felt. How is that?

God?

Yeah, well, how is that in talking to your children? Because it's not also very often that are you acknowledge it or you have you're in the position where you were feeling with children? Yeah, how is that?

I don't.

I think there's a there's a special kind of hell when you're fifteen year old's son looks at you with disgust.

Really and justified.

So yeah, I think the greatest therapy I've ever done is to forgive myself.

And I don't say that lightly.

And I know that people who are very black and white in this world will read this book and go, mat fine, totally fine. But we are human beings having a human experience, and we all make mistakes and I'm not dismissing mine. If you read this book, I hope you feel I am taking full accountability for it with

And also I would imagine a different you would be able to bring different strategies to be on what was your yearning?

Yeap.

And it's interesting because lou my middle son, not that long ago, said Mum, do you think you'll ever have an affair again?

I said, absolutely not.

I mean human beings are also put on this planet to learn lessons and not repeat them. And you know that whole thing of once a cheetor always the tuator. I don't believe that for a second. I think we all but you have to feel it, and you have to go through it, and you have to feel that shame and feel that guilt.

I think the part of the reason that it was so striking was that it was at odds with your honesty. Yeah, like your honesty is your touchstone in your character. Me knowing you primarily through this book, I would put my faith in you.

I think that in that context, I think I told myself a whole lot of stuff, and I certainly say that in the book. It went against my spiritual principles. It went against my it went against my feminist beliefs, It went against absolutely everything that I behold true as a human being. But this is the point, right, like, unless you're going to hit that rock bottom, you don't know who you are and where you're bounce.

I don't recommend it.

Don't do it people, But sometimes it was what like if that time had happened again, knowing who I was at that point, I don't know that I would have had the capacity to say no, I don't would. I mean, in those circumstances will never happen again in my life, not ever, So in that respect, I'll never do it again. But if I were to go back there and go would I have had the power and the.

Courage, No, because I didn't then. So you know, I just.

I just think it is given me a depth of forgiveness for humanity, starting with myself.

That's all I can say.

Often the hardest place to start.

And also I had to seek forgiveness from my children, and you know, they just they'd they'd been abandoned by one parent and here was the other one telling them potentially a good reason why, you know, and I had to ask them to have faith in me and believe in me, and you know, see what I was doing to make a difference in that environment, and I do truly believe that just pegging it back bit by bit, and you know, I had to regain their trust and that was not an easy thing to do.

You also kind of had to regain yourself, I guess as a I mean, you're a widow, but you're also a woman. You're a mother, but you're also a woman, and you're a woman who is very attractive to me. I'm gonna say, you have that you know, connection with me, and when did that start to when did you feel that need to rediscover yourself that led to you meeting Sean.

You're it's funny, Kate, I'd see it slightly differently. I think I didn't understand, man. I think it's taken me a lot of time. I've done a lot of work on myself through therapies like EMDR to try and understand.

You know, I didn't. I just didn't. I didn't know. You know what they Yeah, I think what did they say?

That girls learn how to be treated by their fathers, boys.

Learn how to behave.

I don't know that I knew how to be treated, and I don't know that I knew how to respond. And I think I chose. You know, Tony was quite an emotionally unavailable man, and I think that was safer, right, So you know what to do with that?

But you know what else, because I think life prepares you in all sorts of strange ways that maybe you recognize in retrospect your spiritual practice which you had for your whole life as a life. Yeah, you're waking up with men on commercial. That's very male energy that you're waking up with. It really makes you familiar with me.

It's funny. I always say, you know, like the pendulum's got a swing. So if we're having a human experience and we're supposed to experience everything. Then the fact that I only grew up with women. Of course, I chose in industry that I only worked with men, and then had three sons, so you know, I do understand that there's been a steep.

Learning and then had two husbands three babe.

But yeah, are you married another one?

Yeah, this is the first beginning of the first one.

Oh, sorry, I don't mean to be.

That was my Britney spurious, lovely fella the steel Mates.

Yeah, like, of course, because I think, I yeah, I don't know I was. I mean, two of them died to be fair, and I don't and I think if Shan were alive, I would be very much married to him and be super happy.

But yeah, meant to.

Be your love story was hard one.

Yeah, it was, I think.

Because I came in with a lot of trauma, and I think I also came in really defensive. Like I remember what my counselor saying to me, Robin, at what point are you going to put down your weapons when you're going to stop being the warrior and stop being the queen?

And I said, I don't know how to do that. You know, like it was just this, like what's next.

Come on here we are? Yeah, I think, and with Sean I believed, you know, we kept breaking up and getting back together because he didn't want to step parent.

And my kids were too little, and I wasn't gonna leave hood. I just wasn't. I couldn't.

And he was based in Sydney, you were in Brisbane and you had been former colleagues who had rediscovered three months. Yes, he wasn't.

He was just my boss at Fox.

FM for three months and helped get me a job from an assistant producer. He actually helped me get my first on job at Triple T and Tazzy on the Triple T Morning crew. So I literally only worked with him for three months. But yeah, and I wouldn't even say, oh, we had a deep connection. We really didn't like. He was just he was just a kind guy in the industry.

Did he think you had a deep connection?

No?

Did he remember you differently than you remembered him?

Ah, he remembered me, but he you know.

One of the things that has come about since his death is that so many people have come out of the woodwork about how kind Sean was to their career and how much he really championed people, and I think I was one of someone he wanted to see go forth and do well. And he kept tabs on everyone that he worked with and were progressing and doing stuff, and I was just one of them.

When you discovered each other in a romantic scense, yeah, yeah, what did that feel like? Did it feel like? Because I get the sense that it felt like something you hadn't felt before.

Yeah.

I think I think the affair awakened in me a.

Desire to be desired.

And that is not being disrespectful to Tony, but I think our relationship had broken down so much that that had long gone for both of us, and he would say the same, I'm sure. So I think the affair gave me that sense that I could feel something and that was never you know, like that disintegrated quickly and fairly, idolutly, and then within Shawn, and I think I then had a different idea of what I wanted in a relationship, and I thought, I want to have a really deep

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Well you did work it out.

Yeah, we did in the end, but you know, and yeah, and that came to an ultimatum, which often happens, you know, where I just said that's enough. I'm not going to keep going backwards and forwards and playing around. It was really painful. This was a really couple of ease, on again,

And how was it. The boys initially were not convinced.

I played it. I took.

I played a really long game with that, and being in Sydney that was easier. I went down there more often than he came up, and then when he started to come up, it was gradually. They were very busy with their own lives and I'd made it sure that they could still have their touch points. My boys were very into soccer. They spent their weekends with their mates. They're quite social kids. So it wasn't his mum's boyfriend.

Did. It was more a gradual kind of this issue Nanni.

Yeah, but he was more than a boyfriend. He was the love of your life.

Well it turned out to be.

Yeah, But you know that in itself was a process too, because cancer has a way of stripping off the bullshit, and when he was diagnosed with liver cancer, we went on that journey and then when it became terminal, it became really real. And I think Sean's way of dealing with that was to really dig deep into his heart and have the relationships he wanted to have.

And all credit to him, I mean I found the.

Way he then communicated with anyone that came into his orbit was really special and that's because he decided that he wanted it to be real and sincere, and so that meant a different level of communication with me, and we fought really hard, like cancer is such a beast, and there's the Western style and then there's the alternative,

And you decided to get married. And that was eleven months before he died.

Yeah, So his terminal diagnosis was I think to August, and then he proposed literally that like was he was diagnosed on a I think it was a Tuesday afternoon, and I took Wednesday, as did the kids, and his kids came up and we took Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The Wednesday, we went to Movie World to blow off some steam and he proposed then and then it was like, let's do this quickly, so we had nine weeks, but in

And yeah, the wedding day was was I think the chapter where I started crying.

I love the wedding. The wedding was the best week our lives.

Just amazing.

It was so fun.

It was so fun, It was so joyous, it was so you know, it just was everything. The kids walked me down the aisle, his kids walked him down the aisle. You know, it's just we had maraccas, we had people had drinks, like they were dancing to the music as we're dancing, and there's this great video just that moment as we enter the hall, and there's.

Just so much good love to see that. Yeah, of course it's the greatest. I love it. I still watch it. It just makes me happy.

And you go from the intense joy of that day, which I think is amplified by the fact that everybody in the room knew.

Yeah, he had terminal caes Yes to searching.

I mean, having your honeymoon overseas with all the kids. Incredible, an incredible three week trip with nine people.

I know, it was so fun. There were moments crazy.

But crazy, but also a man who's dying, yeah, but who's pushing through Yeah.

Yeah, and did like really did, and you know, I didn't want to talk about it during the honeymoon. We did one other overseas trip in June July when he was getting really unwell, and again like just pushing, pushing, and that you know, there's photos in the book where you see at the start of the trip that he looks quite healthy, and just two weeks later, when I'm trying to get him home, he's very unwell. But you know, again that bloody mindedness is. And I'm so grateful because

And at one point he sees, I can't remember what it is. I think you're at a concert or something. He's looking at you, he's not looking at the stage, and he said, I'm trying to I'm making I know that I've only got one chance for you to remember this forever.

Yeah, yeah, Hugh Jackman, I think.

You Jackman's that's right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, he but he didn't want to. And I feel really sad for his daughter, particularly Ali, because she desperately wanted letters, you know, she wanted him to write stuff about when she got married or when she had a baby, and he just couldn't.

He just couldn't. It was too much for him to.

He wanted to help us have the greatest moments with him, but he didn't want to think what he would miss out on fair enough, really.

Yeah, you have to put yourself in a place where you're not going to be.

Yeah, And he didn't want to. And I know that that's been really sad for our you know, but her daughter looks I can see Sean in her daughter, and I know they do certain rituals.

You know, because you were also the love of his life and his kids were grown up but young. Do you think they felt like you took something of their father from them? Oh?

Probably, And I think I probably did.

And certainly having three boys, you know, if I had my time over again in terms of his kids, I would want to do it differently.

And I say that in the book.

I have such love and respect for his children, Jamie and Elli and his ex Megan, and I don't you know, I get a bit uncomfortable about, you know, for human for them saying I'm the greatest love because I think he was so proud of his kids, like there was nothing more important for him. But I think when you're dying,

Absolutely they would have, but it would have been really tough.

By the way, I just want to make something really clear. You never had an affair with him. It was not an affair. When you mentioned his ex wife and Megan, I just thought because of our previous reference, no no, no, no no no. I just want to make sure that they know. For people who dip in and dip out of powers, I did not, you know how I was saying, In strange ways, life has prepared you for what's to come. And so there was your spiritual practice and your aligning

Yeah?

Which was it was? We finished up at the end of November. Yeah, so you.

Were told you'd done it. Seent shock waves you know through radio circles because you and your show.

Well yeah, I mean it had been going on for months behind the scenes, and it wasn't so shocking for us because there had been five hundred people or at that stage four hundred people who'd lost their jobs within our networks. So, I mean our radio station was decimated anyway, and we were the last people standing. You know, everything else was networked out of Sydney in some ways. It wasn't like we were waiting for it, and it was we were unsure as to what would happen.

So I don't know that.

I mean, I don't think the general public knew that although it was uncomfortable.

Like, what they did know was that you were gone. Yeah, And I just love this that the people rose up, you know, the people rose up. They didn't like it. They replaced you with a guide. They didn't like it. And I say it's amazing because listeners will have worked with people like this. But radio is full of people like this. The managers and the people who make the decisions never acknowledge that they've made a mistake. They will back in a bad decision to the demise of their

Well, what happened was there was a change of gud and even though the new guard, and it's written in the book, the new CEO had been there for nine months and was part of the decision to let us go.

He I think because he wasn't a radio guy.

He came from television, and I think there was a group of people around and there were others coming in. They just didn't realize what was going to happen. And it was revenue as well as listeners. And also I mean the listeners revenue g yeah, true, but believe me, in radio terms, at our separate things.

Especially at the moment Hope alone.

And also I think there was a realization that certainly on Brisbane radio, there was only going to be one woman for one hour, and that was going to be Jackie Oh in the Hour of Power, which was a repeat of their breakfast show that played for an hour at six to seven at night. One woman on commercial radio in our network. I mean, are you joking in Brisbane? So I think there was a whole lot of things

I got really angry because it felt like the most abusive relationship I'd ever been in.

You know, I love you, I don't love you you and you've got to understand this is the second time the company had done it to me. Yeah, it happened to previously and I'd been brought back. So I was pretty harsh and just said, you know, why did you put us through this?

What is this?

And to his credit, he took it amen, And then I said, he said, I'd run you first. He might well have total three of us that might by the way, and he said, I've got to talk to Keep and Cory and Keep, knowing the beast that he is, he needed time to process, and Corey just said, I'll do whatever the other guys want to and so then we were kind of going, Okay, what does this look like and what does this mean?

Because seven people in our.

Show lost their job that day that it all finished, and all of those behind it, well most be behind the scenes people couldn't come back and so they got other great jobs. So it was like, well, what are we going to do now? And the situation hadn't changed where the company was still pretty you know, like struggling to Yeah, I've got to.

Be really careful what I say. But you know, our situation hadn't changed.

And we don't need to get into the ins and outs of it. But my point is if you had not shared with your listeners the full ex stint of who you were, you never would have had that relationship. Okay, don't you think don't you think that's quite amazing that that what you did because you didn't know any other way to be, would ten years later or eight years later stand in such good stead for you that people saw you the whole of you and wanted you. There's no greater compliment.

From strangers, from strangers who know you absolutely absolutely and you know again, I'd go back to that point of be you know, age appropriate, not necessarily for our listeners, but be honest, because don't we as human beings want that? And I think there was a connection. And I don't take full credit for this. I think Corey, shut up, shut up.

They're not on, then, I'm not talking to them.

I don't worry about then. You're very good at giving people credit. But well, there's there's no single female on commercial radio breakfast.

I can't think of one commercial not.

ABC, no like, there's no single female, there's no duo like.

Also, I don't have a desire for that because we're well like, I'm a companion creature. I love the I love the plant. So do you. You're very social?

Yeah, I do.

I have to ask you, what does joy look like for you now? Because through even the darkness, you really have punctuated all those periods with joy.

Joey for me now And look, I am in a different phase of my life. My boys have all moved out, and that is a special kind of hell. I pull it the most painful breakup of my life, you know, with your when your children, and yet it's the greatest gift because they're all amazing, functioning adults, living their best lives and don't need their mother in their corner.

So I've done my job. But it is very painful. I does him make me cry?

It's very painful for them not to be here with me. And you know, I actively put them on a plane in twenty twenty three together and said meet me in Scotland in nine weeks time for one of our o pair's weddings, because I knew that, particularly my eldest was well. Actually your three of them were so worried that something was going to happen to mom that they didn't want to leave the mess, and I'm like, you've got to go. You've got to go see the world and see that

So so will.

They'll be watching this video? Will they be watching him?

I don't know.

I told them Mom's fantastic. In the world's fantastic. Mum's okay, She's fine.

They know that now.

I think my special kind of joy is my boys. I built this really big deck. I bought a tiny little Queenslander and I built a big deck on the back with a huge TV and a big barbecue. And they come here and I'm three hundred meters from sun corpse. So they'll have the footy on the telly and hear the cheers and then see the goal and they'll bring their mates over, and the bar fridge is always stopped, and you know, I'll you know. So my special kind of joy is my boys choosing to spend time with me.

Boyfriend, I've got it. Yes, I was going to get to him.

I was gonna say, my Mum's way. He's not way down in this, but he is. Also you know, there's been it's a it's a I'm a lot and there's been a big grief journey and it's been it's been hard. It's been hard re establishing a life without my children and just focusing on me and finding love.

And there's a lot to explain.

There's a lot to explain.

And he has also had a pretty complicated life which has come with its own trauma. So I think that's been interesting for both of us. And you know, mate, I don't, I don't. I kind of I'm pretty raw with everyone in my life. So that's a lot to take, like I can, and you know, it hasn't been easy for him. And also this book, right, like imagine.

Your girlfriend had read all about my past life and now one of them was the love of my life.

Has he read it?

Yeah?

Yeah, that he read the long version which is I think would have been a special kind of hell. So he's I've given him the new one, and I mean he's mentioned in it too. I'm very grateful to him. He's very different from Sean. He's very different from Tiny. He lives on the sunny coast. He's very practical minded and has been absolutely fundamental in helping me navigate through all this.

Stuff with work.

He's ex military, so he's quite a strategic thinker.

And he's a biker. A biker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you are too. I am too now.

But see, this is the thing. My special kind of joy comes in adventures. My special kind of joy comes in what next, you know, like I have. I think the two deaths of Sean and Tony taught me that life can change quickly and instantly, and so live it, live it now, and.

So that I love that. Like, yeah, that's so funn Well.

That's very much the message of your Flamingo's book.

So tell me what you really thought.

Oh yeah, I've told you what I really thought. I really really, I absolutely was so impressed by it, by you, by your courage, by your honesty, like I said, breathtaking at times, by the pain that you have experienced and the lessons that you yourself have taken from it, but that you also in part for others. The story of Sean dying, which you wrote conveyed through the notes you were taking at the time, is one of the most

I'm such a radio person. I'm waiting for the butt.

No, there's no bar. Well, you'll provide the bar, you'll drop that in. But Robin Bailey, I have to thank you for sharing yourself so profoundly. Ah.

Thanks mate.

There's a kind of honesty in Robin that feels very rare. She's honest about grief, about love, about the choices she's made, and she's honest about the ones she wishes she hadn't and what stays with me from that conversation is not just what she's been through, but how she's made sense of it. Her memoir is called Flamingo's Aunt Born Pink, and it's as honest as this conversation. If you or someone you love is struggling, We've included links to support