An unpredictable life

Mo Skett will launch her autobiography ''Nine Lives'' at the Warwick library.

By Abbey Cannan

Some people choose to never leave the town they were born in, whilst others leave to travel the world.

Are people just curious about other cultures or do they feel a belonging to somewhere else in the world?

Allora local Mo Skett has lived a completely unpredictable life, travelling far and wide and experiencing things she only ever dreamt about. Now she has taken pen to paper to write an autobiography which will be launched at the Warwick library on Friday 19 July from 10.30am.

“Once you have travelled far from home, it is almost impossible to stay in one place for long, until you find that perfect place you can call home once more,” Mo said in her autobiography, Nine Lives.

Mo found that perfect place to call home in the town of Allora, after spending her life exploring the world.

“We are now living in Allora between Toowoomba and Warwick, where we moved to from the Gympie area in 2015. We moved here to be closer to our son and his family who live near Toowoomba, and we now have a granddaughter and another on the way; and partly due to our age. But we still miss the open spaces and natural bush – for it has been over 40 years since we had neighbours that you can see or hear. I have been ‘officially’ retired for about 18 years and now just potter about and do a little art when motivated,” Mo said.Mo was born in England during the Second World War and grew up in a loving family in Surrey and Kent. Upon leaving school Mo travelled up to London each day to college and later to where she worked for two years in the Commonwealth Relations Office.

At the age of 21 she was sent out to Lagos, Nigeria to serve as an Accountant in the British High Commission. She travelled extensively in the neighbouring countries including a trip to Timbuctoo, until she left just as the Civil War began. She was then posted to Karachi, Pakistan, again as the Accountant in the High Commission. Now the C.R.O. merged with the Foreign Office and became the Diplomatic Service. Whilst in Karachi, she was able to travel with friends up north and then west to Afghanistan up the Khyber Pass to Kabul. Not wanting to continue in the Service she resigned and migrated to Western Australia in 1967.

“I very recently found a box full of letters that I had written home during the 1960’s when living and working for the Diplomatic Service which brought not only memories back but including events that I had completely forgotten about. I chose the front cover as it is one of my favourite paintings and the back cover with the Tuareg designs that I did for an exhibition ‘Blue’, one of many that I exhibited in with other members of our Inkubations Printmaking Group in Gympie. I loved the Sahara and its people. I now know that I just love deserts in general. The Australian ones not quite as hostile maybe, but still full of interest and life, away from noise and lots of people,” Mo said.

In Western Australia Mo joined the Commonwealth Employment Service, serving in Perth and Albany before transferring to the Arbitration Inspectorate, and then back to the Employment branch. She was sent to Melbourne for three months and there she met her husband to be.

Later living back in Perth and now married she took leave and she and her husband moved to the Goldfields, where they re-opened an old gold mine and lived isolated in the bush until she was seven months pregnant when the local Station owner offered them a house and part-time work. Eventually they moved to Kalgoorlie where she became involved with the Pony Club whilst continuing to look after her young son. Mo then reached her lifelong dream of acquiring horses whilst her husband and business partner continued working as prospectors.

Eventually they made enough money to buy a farm near Northam and began a Cashmere Goat Stud. After several years and the stock market crash of 1988 there was another move – then to Queensland in 1991 where they continued farming but this time with cattle and grain on the Condamine River near Dalby.

“After my father died in 1991 and my mother went into a nursing home, I was helping to clear out my parent’s house, when I came across some letters that my parents had written to each other when courting. I realised then that I knew very little about their lives before they became my mother and father. With two World Wars and the Great Depression life was so different then. I also realised how different life was too when I was young, to what it is becoming now. As I have had quite an interesting life, I think, with working and traveling in many other countries, I thought that my son, who was born shortly after my 38th birthday, would like to know more about his mum’s life. This story would be passed down to my grandchildren too. What will they experience in their lifetime?” Mo said.

“I began writing the basics of my story in the mid 1990’s and have added bits and rewritten parts again and again. Like painting a picture, when do you stop? Life keeps on evolving and even in retirement, different paths keep cropping up, and memories that have lain hidden, often resurface.”

With more floods and droughts, Mo and her partner sold up again and moved to near Gympie and bought an orchard. Until there was more floods – so this time, in 1999, they sold up and ‘retired’.

Mo then became a full-time artist, exhibiting in several galleries on the Sunshine Coast and Wide Bay areas. She worked mainly in mixed media and later took up paper and printmaking as well as making hand-made artists books.

The next venture was to attend a two-year part-time course in Byron Bay, learning spiritual energy healing taught by the Four Winds based on the teachings of the Laika and Q’ero Shamans of Peru. Mo then began running classes and workshops to help people become healthier and happier and generally to improve their lives using the methods learnt.

For various reasons she and her husband had to leave this ‘life’ and so they sold up and moved to Allora to be closer to their one and only son and his family.

Mo said she is looking forward to her book launch at the Warwick library and she hopes that people will be inspired to achieve things they never thought they could do.

“Most of all, I would like the reader to have a more open mind to what is possible,” she said.

“Of course life is so different now to the life that I have experienced and maybe it is almost impossible to actually do some of the things I have been able to do, but there are so many other things that are possible now that we never dreamt about 50 or so years ago.”

To meet Mo and to pick up a copy of her autobiography, head to the Warwick library on Friday 19 July from 10.30am or the Allora RSL on Saturday 20 July from 9am.