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Shirley de la Hunty revisited

For anyone who has looked through the monthly indexes of this journal, they might have noticed that the only gap since it started was for the 5th of May. There was an essay there, but I decided a few days later to remove it. The subject was my personal recollections of the Western Australian Olympic athlete, Shirley de la Hunty. She had recently died in unusual circumstances at her home, which is not far from mine. My reason for pulling the item was simply because I felt it might have been regarded as too insensitive so close to her death. I figured it could wait a while until all the hullabaloo died down.

Well this morning I have put the essay back in its proper place, the 5th of May. My personal recollections of her can be brought up by clicking here, or going into the index for May.

Over the past two weeks the ABC has run a two-part story about Shirley de la Hunty in its series Australian Story. It is very unusual for any of its subjects to be accorded two episodes.

They were intriguing to say the least. They revealed that she was a far more complex person than I visualised. Her father was a dominating athlete, and so she became one too. She basked in the glow of her early acheivements in athletics throughout her life, but much of her private family-life had tremendous unhapiness.

Her athletic awards were won under her maiden name of Strickland. I was very surprised to learn that when these victories occurred she was already married to a young geologist called de la Hunty. There was aninmosity towards him from the beginning by her father, who had opposed the marriage.

Bearing in mind that this was a woman who frequently described herself as a nuclear physicist,
I was also surprised to learn she had defiantly cultivated athletic contacts in the Communist blok in the years preceeding the1950s Melbourne Olympics. She must have a fat ASIO file.

Her successful husband became a squash fanatic and even built himself a private squash court at their home. But he collapsed and died at a relatively early age while playing a game.

While he was alive there was a son who became involved in the drug scene in Perth. Trouble was he was also doing medicine at the University of Western Australia. The university refused him permission to sit his final exams. The family pursued a vigorous but unsuccessful legal battle on his behalf.

The de la Huntys had three, or maybe it was four children. In the program some related stories of how the realtionship, particularly when they were young, was a loving one. However, their mother had always dominated them and attempted to direct their lives towards sporting achievement. As adults there appears to have been burgeoning deterioration of the relationships. A particularly bitter division existed with one son who didn’t participate in the TV program. He lived next door to his mother on an inherited portion of the family estate in Applecross. Apparently he had initially offended her with the design of his house. It interfered with her views of the Swan River.

The program revealed that at the time of her death, Mrs de la Hunty was having serious financial troubles. She had mortaged the family home to finance a business venture by a another son. The venture failed and the repayments couldn’t be met. The son living next door was pressured to wade into the financial mess, but evidently resisted. The bank had demanded a repayment plan from Mrs de la Hunty for a half million dollar debt by Friday 13 February this year, but she failed to appear. Her body was found beneath a kitchen bench by one of her children on the following Monday. She could not have got there by simply falling.

The family deny she took her own life. No autopsy was performed at their request. I think this a pity because it obviously now haunts them. The death certificate apparently attributed her death to “natural causes.” However, the Australian Story series revealed that she was very depressed over a long period of time, and had become a lonely, embittered alcoholic. Coupled with the family divisions and the terrible financial mess, all the ingredients were there for suicide.

The tragic end of Shirley de la Hunty now seems destined to overshadow her brilliant athletic achievements. She seemed to have a particular knack of alienating many people who saw her in her other guises. I suppose that now having viewed some aspects of her private life, there will be a better understanding of her, and of the way in which she dealt with others.

If there is a lesson from this sad story it is that people who concentrate on achieving and maintaining public stardom do not necessarily make good role models. I feel pity for her, and for her family,

© MMIV Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out the index of my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days. Topical – often humorous – no swearing – no porn – no spam – no soliciting – no religious mania – no smoking – no catches.

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