Janet Barcham

This is a page dedicated to the memory of my mother, Janet Margaret Barcham. Mainly just some photos (clearly in no particular order) that I think sum her up very well, some pieces from the Service, and a few other things that I think she would enjoy you seeing!

My mother loved flowers - pink roses especially - but I'm sure she would prefer any money you might be tempted to spend on them in her honour to be donated to the Cancer Council:
Donation Page
Some pictures (many the same as below) as shown at the service:
Video montage
Click to hear Janet's favourite song (if you subscribe to Apple)
Or click for a video (plus ads!) of her favourite song!

Janet's marriage to Geoff in London in 1968 (with her parents Harry and Kitty)

With her beloved first dog: Penny

With me as a baby - the Rag'n'Bone man would swap clothes baskets like this one for old rags (and presumably bones)

With her parents

Janet liked Bruce Springsteen as well (click for Apple Music again)

On my 18th birthday - truly days best forgotten.

In February 1983 my mother and I became Australian citizens.  At the ceremony we were each presented with a tube-stock tree.  The very colourful Tasmania-less cake above was baked by Barbara Hayes, our next door neighbour at the time. 

Poem for Janet

In my dream last night
My mother’s china cabinet was missing
From its niche upstairs in her vast empty house
Scammed and stolen and sold away
Along with its treasure of trinkets

Green and white Coalport, Limoges vases and plates
The family silver, painted brass Robins and Budgies from
Venice and Ballarat, Ivory ladies and worlds within worlds
Polar bears from Hudson Bay, a few stray mice
Even more in the drawer!

                   and the air-dried pink rose
                   fresh in it’s crystal bell jar:
                   her love token from Geoff

But after I woke in tears
I remember my own front room
                 where the cabinet now sits
With its simple lines and loving dove-tails
                all the trinkets are still there
Except the rose that left her long ago
When air interrupted its long sleep
           maybe I’ll replace it for her
Or else it can just live on as it is
In my loving dreams


My mother's parents moved to Australia to join us in the late 70s, into a house only a street away from us in Bass Hill.  My mother was there for them whenever they needed her.

Click to learn all about Janet's favourite perfume

In Burradoo (about 2002), with Jayne

Before the Great Coming of Billy (see below) my mother was known as the Kookaburra Lady of Burradoo

Click for her favourite writer and novel

Trip to Egypt and a Nile cruise - with Geoff in 'Sheik of Araby' mode

Janet spent a large part of her life looking after other people - including being the (geographically) nearest relative to Maisie and Keith Barcham (Geoff's parents) after his death in 2004

The Swinging 60s - in particular a job at Butlins holiday camp at Bognor Regis! 

The secret of her always wonderfully smooth and soft skin was ... staying out of the sun and quitting smoking (a little too late as it turned out)!  But, for the record, her favourite skin care product was:
Skincare secret!
Favourite restaurant:  Biviano's at Dural, in particular their Veal Oscar:
Biviano's

In early September 1939 the UK government evacuated 100,000s of women and children from areas around London in danger of bombing, in an operation called 'Pied Piper'.  This included Janet's mother Catherine (Kitty) who gave birth to my mother a week or so later (on 24 September) far from home 

With her father (Harry) on leave during WWII.  Janet very proudly translated Harry's war diary from it's original Utter Scrawl into a typed-out version I could read

Billy the Cockatiel.  Hatched 15 March 2009.  Escaped through the back door in Burradoo at 4pm Wednesday 11 August 2010 - found by Janet two days later, down the road in a tree at the Monastery.  Still going strong, now in the tender care of Georgia Mitchell. Long may he squark!

In the backyard at Bass Hill


Sitting here again -
These clank and clatter people
And the singing sky.
What to do about it all?
Drink orange juice and whistle.
(Thomas Gurgal, 1973,  in the Japanese Tanka style)

I shared the above with my mother last year, and she replied with, to my knowledge, the only poem she ever wrote (supposedly to the beat of Sinatra's My Way):
Oh for orange juice I cry,
grape will not suffice
My tears falling sight unseen
as Bill looks on
with wistful stare.


On behalf of my mother: Good luck and a Long Life to you all!



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