RIP July Hales
4/4/1948 – 11/7/2026
Mum was born and raised in Belmore, Sydney, the middle of three sisters, Lynne and Robin, one year apart. She said she was always a bit of a loner at school, with only one or two good friends.
She finished school at 15, which was pretty standard back then. Her first job was at a bank and she got into her fashion stage, matching her high heels with her handbag.
She got a motorbike and rode it hard and fast, drank scotch on the rocks, smoked cigarettes and sunbaked for hours. She also started working with dogs and continued working for kennels until moving to Nimbin.
At age 19 she went to Melbourne to be a strapper for racehorses, but then it was not easy for women in the industry, and she had to let it go. She got part-time work in bars and a few seasons doing housekeeping at the Snowies, where she learnt to ski.
In her early 30s, Mum went back to school to get her HSC so she could go to uni to study to be a vet. She got through one year of uni. She said, “I just could not study, no matter how hard I tried.”
It was around this time Mum met Dad at a pub. He was an English merchant seaman 20 years her senior. After five years as a couple, Mum got pregnant, gave up drinking and smoking, and they got married by Ted Noffs at the Wayside Chapel.
In 1985, Mum was 37, I was born and we all lived in Potts Point. Mum and Dad had the opportunity to run a boarding kennels, and Mum worked herself to exhaustion over the next year and a bit to save a bit of money to make the move to Nimbin.
She knew she didn’t want the city life for her kid; she wanted community.
Mum bought our block of land on Blue Springs community in 1988, and with Dad and the help of the community, they built our “temporary dwelling”. In less than a year Dad was gone and it was just Mum and me, though Blue Springs had kids aplenty to play with.
Mum started me on outdoor adventures early, and took me to dances, gigs and festivals, all by hitch-hiking or public transport. She never drove, but got everywhere on time.
Mum started volunteering at the Environment Centre when I was three or four, then at the Nimbin Community School where I later spent most of my primary school while she was doing the books, making lunches and then being acting principal.
She made cakes for all sorts of fundraisers and the Blue Moon cabarets, did bookkeeping for Nim-FM, helped at the Museum café, the Timbara base camp, the chai tent in Canberra over Invasion Days, the Weave and Mend gatherings, joined the new Bushwalkers Club and the re-formed CWA and set up her tipi for various things.
And for over 30 years, she co-ordinated the Community School. But with all of that, she made all the time I would need for me.
By 2007 I had met D and we were running a guesthouse in the Blue Mountains, and before I knew it, I was married and having babies.
Those 10 years at the guesthouse were tough for me, but Mum was there every school holidays, at our busiest time. She helped anywhere and everywhere she could, and we still went bushwalking all through the Blue Mountains.
In 2017 D and I moved to Rylstone. I had a van, I had school holidays free, and Mum had cash. The kids got the best Nanna, and over the years we travelled, camped, bushwalked, swam, kayaked, snorkelled and danced.
Our last adventures were in April this year. Then Mum got sick. She insisted on making it to her last MardiGrass, but afterwards she had to come back home with us.
After a doctor’s visit in the Blue Mountains, we did a small bushwalk, and that night she got sick again. We got a diagnosis of a fast-growing brain tumour. It was too late to operate.
Mum accepted all of this. Mostly she was the calm and pragmatic person she always was, grateful for the life that she’s had.
At the very end, Mum was able to access voluntary assisted dying. This is what she had wanted, to have her autonomy. The last thing Mum had on her mind was that she wanted all the community to keep going.
And most of all, she wanted everyone to keep singing and dancing.