The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Connie was born in Coventry, England in 1925 to a working class family. She migrated to Whyalla, South Australia with her husband, Bill and their son.

Connie became active in the Anti-War Movement during the Vietnam War, when her son was a teenager, a newspaper announcement regarding conscription being the trigger.

This involvement lead to her joining the Women’s Liberation Movement, where she was part of the core group that established the Women’s Liberation Centre at Bloor Court, Adelaide and a counselling service as part of the centre. She also helped set up the first Women’s Shelter in Adelaide and the Christies Beach Shelter, in suburban Adelaide.

Connie was a member of the Tuesday Afternoon Group, a group of older women interested in women’s issues. She was a poet and writer with the Adelaide based, Friendly Street Poets from its inception and has been published in many of the Friendly Street Poet anthologies, as well as in journals, magazines, and newspapers. She also published two collections with Friendly Street Poets, Other Ways of Looking c1988) and Earthdweller. Ugly as a Boxer’s Glove was also published about Connie’s life, as a text spoken by Connie and edited by Marg McHugh.

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