I was born in 1955 in the small  rural town of Heathcote, Victoria. I’m the youngest of four – three girls and a boy.   I was born into a musical family.  My father, Donald Roberts, now 91, grew up in the yodelling cowboy era and played the button accordion in a dance band.  My mother loved opera and classical music. It was inevitable that  we  would be involved in music.  I recall being asked to sing for any visitors and I also have a vivid memory of my brother, Lynton, singing I’m in the Jailhouse Now for the local barber. 

When I was six, my family relocated to a farm in Bullarook, near Ballarat. The school  only had 24 children. My father was a carpenter and worked our acreage and my mother was the post mistress, running the 24-hour phone exchange and post office at home.   I learnt to drive a tractor 10 years before I got my driver’s licence, and spent many hours harrowing paddocks,  milking cows and feeding livestock.  My family always played music. My sisters took lessons in violin and piano, and  Lynton learnt the guitar. When I was about 11,  dad, Lynton and I started playing at dances around Ballarat. I played a lap steel guitar,  my brother on electric guitar and dad on the button accordion. I took classical vocal lessons from 14, and  at 16 I started singing at Young Farmers balls.  I had several lead soprano spots in the Ballarat Gilbert and Sullivan Society, performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Ballarat and in  South Street Eisteddfods. We recorded  a compilation of  my   dad’s music,   featuring me, Lynton, brother-in-law Wallace Williams and my husband, Glen Bowker, for this year’s Illawarra Folk Festival.

It wasn’t until I was 18, when I  moved from Ballarat to Perth, that I started to look for a career as a musician.  I was working full time in a bank. I walked down to the local hotel in Shenton Park and asked if I could get a singing job there – I sang and played acoustic guitar every Thursday night for three years. Eventually I was performing  five or six nights a week.  It was a big decision to  go into the music industry but  it gave me a proper career path.  That was in 1976. In 1980, I moved to Woollahra, Sydney. The ’70s and ’80s  were the heyday for the music industry. Work was plentiful  and the pay reasonable.  In 1983 I joined a club band, The Debonairs. Then I was in  Pinchgut and later Eureka. 

I did a gig at the Scarborough Hotel in 1991. In 1992 I moved  here. I was a member of the Northern Suburbs Music Association, which recorded three albums.  I still do two or three gigs a month – Glen and I have a duo, Plush Toys.  When I started as a solo singer I only had about 30 songs  in my repertoire but  now I have about 1200.   I sang all over Australia and in Bali. One of my bands supported American icons Peter, Paul and Mary.

In my mid-40s,  I decided to ‘reinvent’ myself.    I went to TAFE, got a Diploma of Human Resources, then a Workplace Trainer certificate and became a trainer in music industry skills in Coniston. I was the Illawarra co-ordinator for Musicoz. About 10 years ago I set up event management business, Kiss Events. We set up  the monthly Bulli Markets at Bulli Showground.   It was highly successful for several years, but with the global financial downturn,  we eventually closed down.   One of the fun events I organised  was The Born to be Mild Scooter and Postie Bike Charity Ride. 

In 2011  I became the centre manager at Wollongong Town Hall. It a was big job  because the town hall had been closed for several years for renovations. I had to get my head around  dealing with alarm systems, aircon, contractors, big organisations like the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The first event was the Sydney Symphony Orchestra – that was spectacular, a full house. We have hosted  expos, symphony concerts, choral events and rock shows. The three-year contract to run the Town Hall concludes in May.  In June I  will run a ’60s music festival at Corrimal Hotel.   I will continue to sing, run  my regular trivia night at Appin Hotel and other events.