Ann Peacock’s tribute to her mum, who died of ovarian cancer
It’s seven months since Lady Susan Renouf died and her daughter Ann Peacock misses her every day. Here she talks to Sue Smethurst about her mother’s amazing spirit and why we have to demystify ovarian cancer.
It’s the cruel unpredictability of grief that Ann Peacock struggles with. It might be a song, a moment or a scent that can instantly trigger a memory of her late mother and unleash a wave of emotion.
“I was sitting in the car recently and a song came on the radio that made me think of some wonderful times we had on the Isle of Man, when Mummy was married to Robert Sangster,” she says, recalling how her mother would pile Ann and her sisters into her sports car and zoom off around the island for a “girls’ day out”.
“We’d be singing as loud as we could, belting down the road, but when we came to the famous Fairy Bridge, we all had to stop and she’d make us say, ‘Hello, fairies’, because folklore says it’s bad luck if you don’t greet the mythical fairies.
“Here I was, stuck in traffic, sobbing my heart out, thinking about those times.” Ann smiles. “I’ve learned all those clichés you hear about grief are very true, the sadness hits you when you least expect it.”
Lady Susan Renouf passed away on July 15 last year, after a brave threeand-a-half year battle with ovarian cancer, and not a day goes by that
Ann doesn’t feel the pain of loss.
Yet, inspired by her mother’s determination to raise money and awareness of the disease which claims one Australian woman every 10 hours, Ann is channelling her grief into action by becoming an ambassador of Ovarian Cancer Australia.
“The statistics for ovarian cancer are so shocking; 1480 Australian women are diagnosed every year, with the lowest survival rate of any women’s cancer. When Mum was diagnosed, I didn’t want to look at the stats because they are so bad.”
Stomach pains
Lady Susan Renouf was undoubtedly the grande dame of Melbourne society. Much travelled, much married and much loved, she was a vivacious force of nature who charmed everyone she met. On a flight back to the UK after her horse Beldale Ball won the 1980 Melbourne Cup, she filled the famous gold cup with champagne and walked it up the aisle for passengers to drink.
“We ran out of champagne at Bombay!” she delighted.
She was always the life of the party, so it was clear something was wrong when the woman known for dancing on the tables at London’s Dorchester hotel struggled to summon up her trademark joie de vivre to celebrate her 70th birthday in 2012. She was uncharacteristically listless and had “funny little jabbing pains” in her tummy. It went on for months, but
in an interview after her diagnosis, she joked that after a watching an episode of Doc Martin, she had convinced herself she had solved the problem.
“Diverticulitis, that’s what I’ve got!” she said.
Sadly, tests showed Susan had advanced ovarian cancer and the prognosis of six months “if she was lucky” was grim, so she decided to put whatever time she had left to good use. She focussed on not only battling her illness, but doing as much as she could to raise awareness of the disease. In between chemotherapy and gruelling surgery to remove the cancer, she gave interviews, filmed a documentary and spoke out about the insidious disease.
“She had the symptoms for about a year,” says Ann, “and although she did go to the doctor, she wasn’t fully checked. Symptoms like abdominal pain or bloating can be everyday issues for many women, but as in Mum’s case and many others, they can be part of something bigger, so we need to be aware.”
My beautiful mum
Susan Rossiter became a household name after she married the handsome rising political star Andrew Peacock in 1963. She was strikingly beautiful with an effortless charm and they quickly became red carpet royalty, often labelled Australia’s own Kennedys.
During the 1970s, The Australian Women’s Weekly described Susan as “the most vital woman on the Australian political scene”.
Prime ministers, celebrities, the rich and powerful were regular guests at the glamorous couple’s Canterbury home in Melbourne and Susan’s dinner parties became the stuff of legend.
Ann remembers those nights well. “Mum had a special silver canister where she kept her after dinner mints. We’d sneak into the kitchen, slide the chocolates out of the packet and leave the wrapper looking pristinely untouched, still inside the box. Mum would get pretty cross sometimes. One night, we took a cigar and smoked it under the bed while the dinner party was all very merry. Suffice to say, she wasn’t very merry when she found out!”
In the days after Susan’s death,
Ann and her sisters, Caroline Cordeaux and Jane Chapple-Hyam, spent hours reflecting on the past and shared solace during the emotional hurdles of their first Christmas without her and the burial of her ashes last month.
Jane, who lives in England, insisted on flying home to Australia to spend Christmas with Ann, while Caroline has been regularly flying in from her Adelaide home to visit her son, Christopher, and tend to the garden at her mother’s Toorak home, which Ann admittedly struggles to visit, “all of her furniture is there, everything is still as it was, except she’s not there”.
“Mum took enormous joy in Christmas,” she says. “We always had lunch at her place and if she found out any friends were on their own, they were always invited, too. The menu was the same every year, a prawn cocktail entrée, then a roast lunch and the plum pudding, which was a recipe of her grandmother’s. She’d light the brandy and carry it to the table with grandeur, always wearing a funny hat or something, then we had to find the money in the plum pudding. Christmas was very traditional with all of the trimmings.
“I wanted to be on my own [last] year. I didn’t want people around because I knew it was going to be hard. I wanted to close the door, hop in the bath with a glass of wine and cry, but Jane insisted on being here, which was lovely.”
Act immediately
Each day in Australia, four women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This month, Ovarian Cancer Australia is launching its #KnowAskAct campaign
to coincide with their major fundraiser, Teal Ribbon Day on Wednesday, February 22. The campaign will encourage women to become familiar with the symptoms of ovarian cancer (see box, below) and to know their family history because genetics are responsible for up to 20 per cent of all ovarian cancer diagnoses.
Ann says her mother was initially embarrassed because she was from an era when you didn’t talk about “women’s business”. She believes this is one of the reasons that Susan didn’t act as swiftly.
“We need to demystify it, be aware of the symptoms and act immediately,” says Ann. “The message which is so important is not to be shy about it, go to the doctor, ask and be checked. Mum’s fight was incredible. She didn’t give up for a moment. There was the odd day where she had a little cry, but that would last for an hour, then she’d dust herself off and soldier on. That was the way she lived her life.”
Shortly after her diagnosis, Susan recalled with good spirits how she’d told her lawyer, if “things got bad, she’d rather take a pill and go now”. She didn’t and endured a painful death, so dying with dignity is an issue Ann has been forced to confront.
The Victorian Parliament will controversially introduce an assisted dying bill to support dying for the terminally ill in the second half of this year, the first state in Australia to do so.
“Mum had a wonderful sense of humour, but dying is no laughing matter,” Ann says. “I’ve thought about it a lot in the past 12 months. I’m very pro-choice when it comes to euthanasia, even though my father instilled in me that no one had the right to take a life except God. But the pain some people go through in dying is horrible and it’s a long journey for some people. I understand why they would want that choice and take that option.
“Mum’s was a horrible death. She fought it the whole way, but that was her. All cancer is insidious; death is insidious. It’s so hard for those left behind, for those who go through pain – there are no winners.”
Unbreakable bonds
For much of our interview, Ann wipes away tears of sorrow and joy as she reflects on her mother’s life. Physically, the similarities between them are striking, especially when Susan was the newlywed Mrs Andrew Peacock.
Ann loves looking back at images of her parents’ younger years. “She was a hero mother, beautiful, fun, loving – a trailblazer,” says Ann. “She was beautiful on the inside and out, and that was the way she was to everyone, whether someone she’d just met at the supermarket or a high-profile person.
“I believe we’ve all inherited both hers and Dad’s sense of community and consideration of others. Mum had a wicked sense of humour and people say to me that we are similar in personality. We are certainly both very strong-willed and I did mention in my speech at her funeral that we often had a difference of opinion!” Ann laughs.
One of those “differences of opinion” was over Ann’s decision to sell the Toorak home she shared with sons Andrew, 17, and Woody, 16, after her divorce from Victorian Liberal Party President Michael Kroger. The home was decorated by Susan, known for her style. In her mother’s last days, Ann told Susan she was selling to start a fresh new life. “Mum said to me, ‘Don’t be silly, Ann!’, and her words were haunting me as I was unpacking boxes a few months after she passed away. I thought a change would be a good way of moving on because Mum’s touches were everywhere. I thought I’d take myself away from living with her around me, but it’s actually been the opposite and very stressful.
“So that cliché that says, ‘Don’t make major life decisions when you’re grieving’ ... well, boom! Did that!” Ann jokes. “I’m ticking them all off.”
Yet the self-deprecating laugh can’t mask the weight of sadness. “There’s no period of time that will heal our broken hearts, but we can talk about it and her, in the hope someone else may not suffer as she did.”
“Mum’s fight was incredible. She didn’t give up for a moment. That was the way she lived her life.”