MAGGIE HART & JUDY TIERNEY
W hen asked who she considered to be her best friend, journalist and travel guide Judy Tierney (left) declared it an impossible question to answer. A gregarious person with a wide circle of friends, Tierney, 74, does not name any one person as her “best friend”.
“So rather than choose my best friend, I can tell you who my oldest friend is,” she says. “I’ve known Maggie [Hart] since I was 19 years old and living in Launceston and we’ve been friends ever since. When I first met her at the Sugar and Spice Club [the female equivalent of the men-only Beef Steak and Burgundy Club] I thought she was such a sophisticated, elegant, beautiful and talented young woman. I was in awe.”
Maggie Hart, 75, who has worked as a teacher, manager of a modelling agency and in catering during her lifetime, says she was similarly in awe of Tierney. “I saw her very much as intelligent, freewheeling, hardworking and clever. I was married very young, so from a housewife’s point of view, she was quite exotic,” Hart says.
Aside from this mutual admiration, the pair had similar interests, chiefly food and cooking, which gave them opportunities to bond. They have remained close throughout their lives, staying in regular contact even when Hart lived in Melbourne and when Tierney was posted overseas for work.
“We shared the experiences of motherhood together, and relationships starting and ending. We were simpatico in many ways,” Tierney says. “Even when we hadn’t seen each other in a long time, we would speak or meet and it would be just like we’d seen each other yesterday. And that’s the measure of a good friendship.”
Hart says: “Judy is one of the kindest people I know. She is non-judgmental. I have always known I can discuss anything with her without being judged. We had so many nights with one of us or the other crying into our pretzels, the other listening and picking up the pieces.”
Now that Tierney lives at Sandy Bay and Hart in Cygnet, they are able to spend plenty of time together again. “My friends have shaped me and made me who I am,” says Tierney. “If you don’t notice other people’s qualities and let them rub off on you a little, I think you’re denying yourself something special. And the fact that someone wants to maintain a friendship with you means something, too.”