Of all the projects that the actor and presenter Noni Hazlehurst has been involved with, a certain children’s show made the biggest personal impact.
“Play School was the most important part of my career,” she says. “I’m incredibly proud of that – it taught me so much about communication, and about the importance of nurturing young children really carefully and protecting them … So it really changed my life in many ways. Every day of my life someone talks to me about Play School.”
Hazlehurst was a host on the ABC early childhood program for more than two decades, from 1978. Outside that beloved gig, she’s also acted in Australian film favourites such as Monkey Grip, Candy and Little Fish, served as host on Better Homes and Gardens, and done regular theatre work. Her latest project is hosting the SBS miniseries Every Family Has a Secret, which returns for its fourth season on 19 October. She’s glad to be part of something that feels real.
“It was what I call ‘real reality television’, in that you’re seeing real people responding to real things in real time. You can’t not feel connected to them,” she says. “I’m a storyteller – to me, the arts are about telling stories. And this was just a wonderful opportunity to have a project where people’s stories were being really examined in detail and had a profound effect on the subjects.”
Hazlehurst counts a hand-me-down from her own family as her most useful (and sentimental) object. Here, she tells us about the small casserole dish that can do it all, along with the stories of two other important personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
A painting of me done by Rosemary Valadon in 1993, when I was pregnant with my second child. It captures one of the happiest times of my life – I was 40, I’d already had one home birth, and was gearing up to have another with my son William. It was summer and I was sitting in a beautiful garden I had in the Blue Mountains, surrounded by agapanthus in beautiful blues and purples. It was all a bloom and so was I. I just felt very powerful and very loved and loving – all good things.
Rosemary entered the painting in the Archibald and I later bought it off her. She now sits peacefully overlooking proceedings in my dining area – a contrast to me in real life, who is generally not that serene.
My most useful object
My mum’s casserole dish. I recently had to move out of my house for 18 months and was living temporarily in a place where I only had access to a little convection oven.
There I realised that all the kitchen things that I’ve spent a lifetime accumulating, I could do without. I really just need this casserole dish, because you can bake everything with it. Now I bake all my vegetables – cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. I bake my animal protein too and put it on top. It’s just a real revelation – and it saves me washing up! And it was a good time to figure all this out, as I recently sold my family home and moved into a smaller place where I learned that downsizing extends to every cupboard drawer.
I’ve also held tightly on to Mum’s recipe book, which is pretty well thumbed and has a lot of loose pages. But it just gives an instant sense that my mother is with me when I open it. It’s in her handwriting and full of all the dishes that she used to cook and her attempts to veer away from English food – recipes for things like moussaka and chow mein. But then it goes to “country casserole” and a particular shortbread she made every Christmas that she claimed was Queen Victoria’s recipe. My mum showed her love through cooking, so it’s a very precious thing and was there all throughout my childhood – just like the casserole dish.
The item I most regret losing
When my mum passed away, I was lucky enough to get a small inheritance. And I was persuaded by someone that buying gold coins was a good way to invest some money, so I bought $10,000 worth of gold coins and put them in a “safe place” in my house. And never saw them again.
That was back in the 2000s – I have no idea where they went.
Season four of Every Family Has a Secret premieres at 7.30pm Thursday 19 October on SBS and SBS On Demand
