This story is part of the September 22 edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories . Nadine Garner is an actor best known for playing Jean Beazley in The Doctor Blake Mysteries.
Here, the 53-year-old shares the one topic she always discusses with her father, which cast member became her first love, and why she loves that her current partner doesn’t work in the arts. “Your father becomes the mark of what a man should be. So in some ways, I’ve expected this intellectual element in all my relationships.
” Credit: Peter Tarasiuk My maternal grandfather, James, fought in Papua New Guinea during World War II. He was a Melburnian but moved to Sydney when I was young. He later moved to Tweed Heads, where I would visit my grandmother, Constance, and him for school holidays.
My grandparents were sweet, joyful people. My mother, Janet, was conceived before my grandfather left for the war and he didn’t see his daughter until she was 21⁄2. My 20-something grandmother had given birth and raised an infant alone, so she was traumatised, too.
Like many soldiers of that generation, my grandfather never talked about the war. I know that in his 80s, before he died, he had terrible night terrors. My mother was very in tune with social justice.
When I was five, she adopted my little sister Mitali from Bangladesh. Mitali had been abandoned in a railway station and taken to an orphanage. I remember going to the airport to collect this beautiful 22-month-old child with a shaved head, disten.