Rugged Reality Tv Survivor in Qld True Crime Inside Story of City Seige Contents
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
JULY 17-18, 2021 SILVER SPLITTERS Older couples are calling it quits on their marriages in increasing numbers – for better and sometimes for worse ELISSA LAWRENCE RUGGED REALITY TV SURVIVOR IN QLD TRUE CRIME INSIDE STORY OF CITY SEIGE CONTENTS Upfront Mel Buttle 3 William McInnes 3 28 Ordinary People 15 You and Me 16 Features Grey divorcees 4 THIS ISSUE Under the gun 8 True grit 12 Life+Style 23 The recent high-profile split of Wally Lewis Culture Club 19 and his wife Jackie highlights a growing Fashion 20 trend of older couples getting divorced after long marriages. Affairs are sometimes the Cafe 21 cause of the split but more often couples find Dining 23 after their kids have left home, they have 31 grown apart. Unfortunately it is women who Travel 24 are more likely to suffer financially from this Books 26 decision. Elissa Lawrence speaks to two Weddings 28 women with very different stories about their experience of “grey divorce”. Big Quiz 30 Also this week, Amy Price travels to My Life 31 Queensland’s far north west to visit the set of the new series of Survivor, where contestants CONTACT US: Write to the editor, Qweekend, and are put through some gruelling challenges in include full contact details so we can establish bona very difficult terrain. fides. Please keep letters to 100 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity. EMAIL [email protected] Editor Natalie Gregg Deputy Editor Alison Walsh Arts Editor Phil Brown Design Sean Thomas Advertising [email protected] MEL WILLIAM BUTTLE McINNES “Dad had a way of Losing one’s yelling my name perspective that meant both We all have things we occasionally misplace and sometimes lose, stuff like come here and keys, mobiles and wallets. They can all drive me up the wall when they go wandering and disobey my yells of you’re in trouble” annoyance at the lack of heed they pay to demands that they reappear. These inanimate objects of course couldn’t give a fig how often one o you remember back when mutters or screams, but they become so you were a kid and your indispensable you think you can’t do brain wasn’t anywhere near without them. finished developing and Mobiles are basically little computers you did things that were containing most of life’s functionary Dless than sensible? Me too. matters, and the amount I’ve put in the But your little brain let you think that wash, left in cars, trains, planes, thrown you got away with it and the adults had no out in the rubbish or inadvertently idea of the masterful trick you pulled? broken doesn’t bear thinking about. Here are a couple of things I’ve now But there’s one item that gets my realised that I totally didn’t get away with. goat like no other. Glasses. Eye glasses, I was right into swimming as a little kid, spectacles, specs, cheaters … call them I was even described as a young Tracey what you will … when they go missing, Wickham, high praise for a five year old I blow my stack. Maybe it’s because who had no idea who Tracey was. To be when one loses one’s specs there’s a hint honest by seven I was a bit over swimming of desperation. training, I was really only in it for club Specs are a sign of getting on, of your nights where I got a bag of lollies, which body wearing out a bit, of time passing. heavily featured my favourite red frogs. And it’s annoying, not being able to see Swimming training was after school, so properly. Spec-less, I have been known I turned up full of beans, and coach Tony to spray cooking olive oil on my face said, “Okay, in the pool everyone.” thinking it was insect repellent, have But to be cool (there was an older girl tried to order non-existent items from a in the squad called Jasmin who was doing menu, such as seafood chow, which I part-time modelling), I didn’t just slide in took for chowder, only to be told the like the rest of the squad, I did a huge high at me because she wanted to be my “So Wayne and Jenny had a barbecue dish was superfood chia pudding. dive. I leapt up in the air as far as I could, best friend. and put all their matches in our yard?” he Lord knows what I come back with then plummeted deep into the water. On the weekends my parents would pushed. “Yep,” I countered. from shopping when a face mask fogs I felt my face hit the bottom of the pool. have naps and during these times I would “So when I go and ask Wayne if he put up my specs; it’s like I need an internal I glided up to the surface with a huge pounce on the nearest matchbox, head these matches here, he’ll say yes will he?” demister or foghorn warning everyone smile on my face. Tony was there staring under the anonymous, shady cover of the I paused, jeez he’s good. as to my whereabouts. at me, “Did you scrape your face on the mulberry tree in the back yard and try to “Yep, probably,” I replied, covering my There’s the added pressure on the bottom of the pool Melinda?” he asked. light some of the dry mulberry leaves for bases with a probably and relying on the aesthetic appearance of specs, and “No,” I replied, although my face felt fun. Post-pyro pleasure, covering my fact that Dad hopefully couldn’t be people wear the oddest things to hot and a bit weird. “Are you sure?” Tony tracks wasn’t my strong suit, so I’d leave bothered going next door for a chat impress or make a statement about followed up. “Yep,” I said. Tony and I had the burnt-out matches in a neat pile under because Frank Warwick’s World Around themselves. If people want to wear stuff a stare off for a bit. Then he blew the some grass clippings. Us was starting soon. that looks like some of Elton John’s whistle and training kicked off. “Melinda!” Dad had a way of yelling “I hope Wayne doesn’t leave any more cast-off novelty eyewear and it makes Got away with it I thought. That was my name that meant both come here and matches in our yard because they’re very them feel good, let them go ahead. until Mum picked me up. “Your nose!” she you’re in trouble. He had the whipper dangerous, and Wayne might burn the Stand-in efforts from a chemist make screeched. I flipped down the sun visor snipper out and was standing under the house down, and not be allowed to watch me look like a mad uncle at best or some and saw my red, scraped nose in the mulberry tree. “What are all these Gladiators,” Dad said, as he pulled the freakish figure from a history channel mirror. Well, at least no one saw that, matches doing here?” he asked. Quick whipper snipper back into action. documentary, yet I can see. So that’s must’ve just happened I thought to brain, think. “The neighbours must’ve had Former child genius signing off. something. I guess. myself. Jasmin was probably just staring a barbecue and put them here,” I replied. Mel Buttle is a Brisbane comedian William McInnes is an actor and author V1 - BCME01Z01QW JULY 17-18, 2021 QWEEKEND.COM.AU 03 GREY DIVORCEES What’s driving couples aged in their 50s and 60s to call time on their marriages? Story ELISSA LAWRENCE COVER STORY t was a receipt lying on her lounge room floor that turned her world upside down. Lyell Lamborn knew there had been some troubles in her marriage of 26 years but believed she and her husband were on a path to working things out. But the receipt – for women’s XL underwear – revealed a very different re- ality. The purchased underwear was not in a size that would fit her or her daughters and it Isent a flush of panic up Lamborn’s spine. When she later asked her husband about it, she discovered, at age 58, her marriage was over and that he had been “love bombing’’ another woman for more than a year. Lamborn is one of an increasing number of people who have experienced the phenomenon of “grey divorce’’ – couples aged in their 50s and 60s calling it quits on their marriages. Also known as “silver splitters” or “diamond divorcees”, the number of older couples divorc- ing has been steadily increasing over the past few decades. And there have been plenty of recent high- profile splits that conform – American business magnate and co-founder of Microsoft Corpor- ation Bill Gates, 65, and his wife of 27 years Melinda, 56; rugby league legend Wally Lewis, 61, who split from his wife Jackie after 36 years of marriage; deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, 54, who left his wife Natalie after 24 years of marriage. Australian Bureau of Statistics show there are now almost double the amount of divorces in the 60-64 year age bracket than there was 30 years ago. Lamborn, 60, was with her husband for al- most three decades and they have two daughters aged 26 and 24. She says the break-up has caused her finan- cial stress and up-ended any retirement plans of travel or buying investment property.