"Shoestring" - An unashamed promotion

My indomitable stepmother-in-law, Joy Jobbins (Twig to her family) celebrated her 80th birthday this month - with the publication of her colourful memoir, "Shoestring". How many octogenarians can make that claim to fame?

Today was the book's official launching, and Joy was the featured speaker at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum's After Noon Talks, afterwards signing copies of her book outside the Gift Shop.

She's doing it all again on Sunday 25th November at 2pm - details on the Powerhouse website. Joy's donation of advertising material and photographs relating to fashion promotion in the 1950s, and The Australian Wool Board in particular, has been very gratefully received by the Powerhouse Museum.

It was an exciting day for all of us, since this memoir has had a gestation of 15 years or more since Joy first put pen to paper, having been polished, nipped and tucked, and promoted along the way by various members of our family of wordsmiths.

A former swimsuit model, and then advertising executive in the male-dominated working world of the 1950s, Joy recounts, in often hilarious detail, how she managed to juggle motherhood with a high-powered career that eventually led to her promoting wool fashions as the head of advertising for the Australian Wool Board.

In "Shoestring" Joy herself admits that the lily is deftly gilded in parts, and to my mind there's just enough embroidery to enhance her tales of fashion, fun, family and a financially-challenged life.

In the best tradition of autobiographers, too, she name-drops with gay abandon! Leo Schofield, Chips Rafferty, Maggie Tabberer, photographers Laurie le Guay, Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot, Sir William Gunn, Robert Helpmann, the Queen's couturier Hardy Amies, Jimmy Stewart, Peter Carey, and Pierre Cardin are just a few of the colourful characters who have crossed her path or been a part of her life.

It's a wonderful book ..... honestly!

And you can read more about the remarkable and glamorous Joy Jobbins and buy your very own copy of "Shoestring" by going to Joy's website.

Or you can buy it from Dymocks and other good bookstores. Just $24.95.

Of course the Princess came along too, and was the perfect listener to Great Grandma Joy's reminiscences. I wonder what experiences life will bring her?

A postscript......
Imagine you are 9 years old, out on an excursion to the Powerhouse Museum with your school class and teacher, and you suddenly spot your Grandma Joy signing books in the lobby. That's exactly what happened to Twig's granddaughter Geena today! Absolutely unplanned, but a real thrill for everyone, especially little Geena.