Shirley Barrett

Australian film-maker and author Shirley Barrett died this week. Her brother-in-law Imre Salusinszky pays tribute.

Until her final weeks she never stopped being the life of the party and was able to celebrate her 60th birthday with extended family in November last year. Hollywood came courting, and while Shirley was flattered by the attention, she decided to remain in Australia. She and Chris had a baby girl to think about, with a second on the way. The book was inspired by the experiences of Shirley’s friend Kate, who had surgery for breast cancer as a young woman, recovered, but struggled with the after-effects. In 1981, while studying at the University of Melbourne, Shirley went to a party and met an art student, Chris Norris, who became the love of her life. The couple moved to Sydney in 1985 when, on her third attempt, Shirley was accepted at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. She and Chris were married in Las Vegas in 1992 by an Elvis impersonator. When Karen’s class was studying Egypt at school, Shirley waited impatiently for her to come home every afternoon so they could continue to nurse their dolls through the tribulations of Tutankhamun’s Curse. From an early age she kept a journal, specialising in nonsense-verse, an interest she maintained into adulthood, often regaling captive audiences at family lunches with the rhymed adventures of the household pets.