rachelbarberofficialmemorial

Rachel Barber
1983 -1999
Official Memorial Website
Administered by Rachel's parents Michael and Elizabeth Barber

Nanny Joy (Southall)

So many lovely memories of Rachel: when she was seven the car arrived at my door in the Dandenong Ranges – and there was Rachel with a very long face (having just had a few words in the car). I said, “Oh, I’m sorry you must have the wrong address; I was expecting my lovely happy granddaughter Rachel. You must be at the wrong house,’ with which she threw her arms about me, big smiles, and said, ‘Nan, I am your happy Rachel.’ Problem solved.

Three sisters
in concert at Nanny Joy's.

The first time I had the delight of taking seven-year-old Rachel to the ballet was at the Melbourne Concert Hall. From the moment we walked into the hall Rachel was wide-eyed. We had front row seats in the dress circle to the side and fortunately with a large expanse of balcony in front of us because Rachel hung over it with the same wide-eyed glow as before. She gazed at all below and around us; taking people in as they took their seats. Then the orchestra quietly came in; all hushed with lights dimming. I had to hang on to her as she lent over to see musicians coming in to take up their places. (And I really did, as it's quiet a wide balcony there and half her body lay across it, but at the same time I was so pleased and amazed that she was taken with the orchestra and their instruments. To begin with I thought she's not going to watch the ballet, but of course she did.) I whispered to her at the same time as getting her to sit down and pointed out the first violin and told her that her great grandfather Ernest, my father, was also a lead violin in an orchestra in England, and in London where I grew up. (What I did not tell Rachel was that in 1936 when I was 10 I sat in the dress circle by myself and waited for the murmur of the theatre to die down. The orchestra would emerge from under the stage and my father would take his seat, lead violin, and bow his head to the conductor, before sitting down. I would lean forward enjoying Gracie Fields and the other performers alike. Dad told me Gracie always supplied beer for the boys in the orchestra but what I looked forward to most of all was the end, and the applause ecetera clapping Dad, and knowing that in fifteen minutes he would be outside with his violin in his case and we would be off to the railway station, but waiting first to drink hot tea or cocoa. I loved the feel of the atmosphere in the railway station at 11pm with all the lights and thoroughfare; listening to the musos talking about backstage. This was Walthamstowe, near London, in 1936, and everything about us was to change soon. But what magic those nights bring to me now.) I watched Rachel as the curtain came up and The Sleeping Beauty began. I really did not see much of the ballet as my heart was full of joy at quietly watching Rachel. Interval came and we stood up. I think Rachel was in her own world but she looked at me, held my hand, and just breathed - 'Nan'. Into the foyer for drinks but not for Rachel. Rachel floated and danced all through the crowd completely oblivious to the people and what was going on. A short while later and seated again the ballet continued and after all the applause Rachel had this look of absolute joy and wonder on her face. We came out very slowly savouring all the wonders of the music and the performance and the performers. Thank you Rachel for leaving so many loving memories that fill my heart with thoughts of a joy in you that stay forever.
God bless you, Rachel.

Rachel's Christening:
Mum, Grandad Ivan and Nanny Joy

Nanny Joy with one week old Rachel.

Rachel's Christening:
Granny Susan (Grandad's second wife), Mum and Grandad Ivan

Grandad Ivan (Southall)

Rachel's grandfather Ivan Southall, died 15th November, 2008, aged 87. He was an internationally award winning author of predominantly young adult Australian fiction. I (Elizabeth) have taken the following excerpts from my father's unpublished autobiography. My father, Rachel's grandfather, was so profoundly challenged by Rachel's murder I can see no other way than to express his feelings with his words.

Random excerpts from chapter 24 of Ivan Southall's unpublished autobiography "Everlasting New Year" © Ivan Southall

Rachel played her life straight. Rachel kept her promises. At times, Rachel was embarrassing to have around. She even played it straight with her parents when she fell in love. Incredibly, in a glow, she told them all.
    My generation spent the more critical hours of its life covering its tracks and denying there were any tracks: even if visible to one and all. But a promise, in Rachel's language, was a promise to be kept. At her age, I would never have dared. I'm all but certain my mother would have locked me in a back room and fed me with slices of dry bread pushed under the door…

During the twenty-four hours that ran in parallel with this event [beginning of Rachel's disappearance], Susan and I hung an exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Photography close to the heart of Melbourne city.
    Susan's thirty framed photographs, hand-coloured and over-painted in oils, each bore a significant quotation from the classics, an identifying feature of much of Susan's work, irrespective of medium. This one photograph (and its numerous copies) had been selected from the first fifteen years in the life of her loved granddaughter by marriage. Yes; it was Rachel. The first born of Elizabeth - the third born to Joy and I…

One could say that from the day of her birth, Rachel was remarkably photogenic. And almost from the cradle, a natural dancer. And without qualification, a perfect model. Rachel had been posing for Susan in this room, my study, in the floor space just beyond the reach of my right hand, virtually from the day she learned how not to blink. Dozens of times; scores of times; Rachel has been here in this room, in my very own room. More. More. She's gone on being here. Susan's files of photographs of Rachel are inches thick. One particular photograph - Rachel genuinely asleep as a young child - was the primary component of this new exhibition and, with overpainting, was presented in thirty individual ways…

Treachery of its kind was a capital offence against respect for the life-security of the younger in the presence of the older. It broke the fundamental rule of uncounted thousands of years of courtesy, concern and care for the invited guest. It was a crime against evolution.
     It was not some damn-fool killing on the streets: not some blind impulse: some drunken bewilderment: some fly-by-night stupidity. It was not a mindless hold-up or beat-up that went wrong. It was not a crime of passion or undisciplined retribution. There is nothing about it that can be reconciled.
     The hostess was a former scholarship student at a leading Christian school for girls... Compassion, please, for her parents.
This person, aged nineteen; of high intelligence; and to the best of my knowledge never in physical want. Long exposed, one must assume, to the principles and practices of civilised behaviour. And not by any standard unattractive, as it has been reported she believed herself to be.
     This privileged young woman killed her guest, scarcely out of childhood, aged but fifteen. Killed her, without provocation, with a length of telephone wire held in her own hands. I am unable to see at present how these hands can be washed clean. I hope it will be made clear to me in due time that it is possible.
     Am I required out of respect for the home in which I was raised to forgive this young woman in my heart? Am I compelled to accept what her two hands have done, with premeditation, upon an innocent victim in whose blood aspects of my own person were present?
     I had a life-long association of love with the innocent victim of those hands. I was there years before she was conceived and born…
Words are my business: I know that not a syllable from Rachel could have provoked this infamy. Nor can I foresee how the hands of the murderer can be made clean - even if they are scrubbed sore for evermore.

There are senses in which I think of myself as "representative" of the sons, lovers, fathers, uncles and grandfathers of my generation - and after all, what is this but a page in my own book? I see myself as an unlikely survivor who went off to war in the educated belief that the cause was holy and just and I remain prepared to declare that I was not misinformed.
     By extension, I am every boy who once lived next door, which means that from time to time my behaviour has been impeccable and often enough has been far from it. But as the father of the mother of the victim in this odd "affair", I claim the right through everlasting law to express my feelings.
     This murderer, this spiritually maimed person, may never come to comprehend the magnitude of the infamy she committed against her guest - against the people who loved her - and against the God or Concept that gave life to her. I hope, in truth, that in the bewilderment of her present days she comes to understand at depth what she has done and fully to believe that there are aspects through which she may contribute productively to the sum of her own life and to the lives of others. There is no way she can make amends; but she can give generously through her own life just the same.

…Rachel simply could not have been a runaway. Absurd. No serious consideration was ever given to it by anyone who knew her. It was impossible in the context of her love for those around her; her love for her boy; her love for her home and her room and its glistening polished floor, made perfect by her own hands, for hours of practice evening by evening or day by day. Plus her commitment to her art and - with all but unlikely echoes of her mother - her healthy concept of God.

…I repeat: no "ordinary" kid, this Rachel, though others like her abound. They meet at one's proud definition of "kid" and the badges they wear in common are talent, commitment and naivety.
     As I see it, Rachel, at the ultimate cost to herself, her family and friends - and to dance and theatre at large, even for a generation - trusted a person who once lived across the road and was understood by her, without known hesitation, to be of goodwill.
     At the opening of Susan's exhibition, two days after it had been hung, a long-time friend approached her in an oddly disturbed frame of mind. As a teacher, he had contributed to Susan's mid-life development as a painter. And as a painter, he was a long-time associate and friend of my son, Drew, and in common with Drew, had exhibited throughout Australia and elsewhere abroad. This friend took Susan quietly aside and said, "You know how it is with me: how it is with the Irish: I'm sorry. There's a ghost in this room."
…I was not present. I was home in the company of a young person, Ashleigh Rose, Rachel's immediate sister.
…Shane is of the view that Rachel, as promised, came to the opening...

…Rachel; full-time, life-time student of drama, dance, laughter and tears? What of her terrible separation from us?
The eldest of three markedly lovely girls sharing the delight of Susan's heart and mine. Susan…has been Grannie Susan, notably to these three girls who have filled this house with their laughter and protracted dramatic performances dating back to infancy.
     Rachel, so shortly before her death, eight days or fifteen, standing in the next room from here: perhaps ten steps away: script in one hand, pencil held high in the other, authoratively directing her sisters in her latest adaptation of Cinderella, her long-time Number One Hit in this house. Her sisters endeavoured to carry on - and did well - but it was more than we could bear.

...This writing room of mine, this "study", is the room in which the three girls through the years prepared and updated their act and laid out the clothes they would wear from Grannie Susan's Drama Pack selected from the Opportunity Shop that helps to support Melissa [who is Down's Syndrome]. If I'm laying on the drama, that's the way it is…
     At fifteen years and a few months, she looked set for achievement and prominence. Her friends and admirers were many. A highly shy and insecure thirteen-year-old had taken but two years to emerge as a person of high promise. In an hour or so of a single evening - as far as known - this was all gone…

     Rachel Elizabeth Barber, named for her maternal great-grandmother, was a sensitive, emotional, beautiful, talented young girl, though sometimes in conflict with persons who felt confronted. At the age of fifteen, ten years after the death of her great grandmother, she died from an act of irrational violence that I cannot bring myself to document.

Once when I had taken Rachel out for the day, we passed the Astor Theatre on Chapel Street in St. Kilda. There were posters of movie stars in the window, and when Rachel had finished looking at them, she tapped the glass and said, “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to be a big star.” “Sure, Rachel,” I said. Rachel did become a movie star in a way, when the film “I Am You” was made to tell her story. There are scenes of the real Rachel dancing in our garden on the “I Am You” DVD.

Granny Susan (Southall)

Rachel liked to dress up as her favourite characters, and go out dressed this way. One day she dressed up as a character in Little Women, and went to the shopping mall followed by her chagrined mother who thought that everybody must be looking at Rachel in her full-on 19th century costume. I used to volunteer at an op shop and one day Rachel came in and saw a lovely soft pastel green floaty ballgown that she absolutely loved. But they were in a hurry and Rachel had to leave it behind, Rachel protesting as she went. I remembered a time when my mother had dragged me away from a pumpkin-striped dress she thought would definitely not suit me, and how I cried for two days and then discovered my mother had rung all over town to find it and was able to present it to me! I thought, "Rachel must have this ballgown." I left the op shop and followed them to IKEA where the manager's video disclosed their whereabouts. "Now you will remember to do a good turn to someone else," I told her. Rachel was rapt, and she played many princesses and good fairies in that ballgown ever after.

Rachel loved dancing in our garden and she also loved putting on plays. Her sisters got to act a variety of roles. One day when she was 15, she decided to create a play about a ballet competition. She was a ballet teacher with a clipboard, while her sisters were the contestants. Rachel’s grandfather remembered this scene often; he wept whenever he thought of it. “I remember that lovely young girl pretending to be a ballet teacher for her sisters,” he would say. And then he would always cry...

Rachel at the Op Shop having just tried on the blue dress with her must have eyes.

One of Rachel's favourite musicals was 'The Wizard of Oz'; in the first month of her Diploma of Performance Arts Rachel was learning to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow. This was also a family favourite because her Uncle Tony was in the first 'Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs', it was also one of their hits. One of her friends told me during the two weeks she was missing that she remembered Rachel singing this in class. With this in mind this was the music Rachel's coffin left St Hilary's.

Maternal Grandparents

Paternal Grandparents

Granny Susan (Southall)

Once when I had taken Rachel out for the day, we passed the Astor Theatre on Chapel Street in St.Kilda. There were posters of movie stars in the window, and when Rachel had finished looking at them, she tapped the glass and said, 'That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a big star.' 'Sure, Rachel,' I said. Rachel did become a movie star in a way, when the film I Am You' also known as 'In Her Skin' was made to tell her story. There are scenes of the real Rachel dancing in our garden on the 'I Am You' DVD.

For wisdom is more
moving than any motion
she passeth and goeth through all things by
reasons of her pureness
EVENING

Artwork by Susan Southall was exhibited in Susan's exhibition, which coincided and was coincidental to Rachel's disappearance.

Fair
Sister,

And it was in the realm of Logris , and so befell great pestilence and great harm to both realms...the waste land, for that dolorous stroke

Captain of the sea trading great of the land round Cape Horn
Valparaiso

(Susan added after Rachel;s murder:
Rachel Elizabeth Barber 1983 -1999
Farewell my muse.)

In Dad's retirement; although an author never really retires, he found great pleasure in hybridising fuchsias. He registered favoured varieties through the American Fuchsia Society. This beautiful fuschia was named Rachel. It's registration number is 4338. He named it so because it reminded him of Rachel dancing in her tutu.

When the children used to stay the night, I would get DVDs to entertain them, and their mother was always anxious that they didn't see anything too scary. One time, Rachel was determined to see Jurassic Park. "Don't let them see Jurassic Park," said Elizabeth, "it's too scary." But when we got to the shop, Rachel insisted on taking home Jurassic Park. It was never easy to disagree with Rachel about something like that. So I got what I thought was a quieter film to go with it. Jurassic Park was indeed very noisy from the grown-up point of view, but the children thought it was terrific fun. Then we watched "Beaches" which had children in it. Unfortunately I didn't realise that in "Beaches" the little girl's Mummy dies. Rachel, unfazed by Jurassic Park, was distressed by "Beaches" for a long long time. Real life is scarier than Jurassic Park. Only in real life it was the girl who died. [See link to Sisters' pages where Heather sings The Rose]

It's too scary

'Only in real life it was the girl who died.'

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I think Healesville Sanctuary was Rachel’s first trip to a wildlife sanctuary, and to say that she was mesmerised is an understatement. We had been enjoying the morning seeing many kinds of Australian wildlife but it was here at the pelican enclosure that I could not get her away. For a grandparent it is magic to be there at any such occasion and I was blessed with enquiring inquisitive grandchildren. This was Rachel’s day and this photograph shows her intense interest for these birds. Also they had just been fed. But what captivated me most was the way Rachel's body just unfolded, even at this age there was the form and movement of the dancer she so wanted to be. In the end I realised Rachel was in a world of her own and I sat down to let her enjoy it. I sat quietly watching other people come and go until Rachel responded to my ‘Rachel, darling, it’s time to go.’ Another beautiful picture and happening that stays forever.

The Pelicans

May your darling
little daughter,
So very sweet and new...
Bring a lifetime full of
happiness,
And joy to all of you.

Congratulations

"Hello my darlings, what more can we say,
except hope to see you soon,
all our love
from Mum and Dad"

Mike was 37 years old when Rachel was born. His parents lived in England, and were naturally thrilled by Rachel's birth. They didn't see her until she was about one years old. When Rose, his mum, was in England she was always hoping to be over soon.

Rachel with Grandad Arthur and Nanny Rose, and Lady Sarah - our English cat.

Michael's parents may not have been there to see Rachel on her day of birth but they were the ones to see her take her first steps ( much to my annoyance). Here they are about to demonstrate Rachel's new skills to the camera.

A picnic at Inverloch Rainbow Park

Arthur and Rose, Rachel's paternal grandparents

With links to:
Penguin Books Australia Catalogue

Rachel, in Grandad Ivan's kitchen, showing him a story she has written. Ashleigh-Rose looks on.

After spending most of the day at ballet class Rachel comes home. She is worn out and unfortunately I find an underlined note from her teacher, which reads; 'Rachel must finish her homework'. I regret to say, now, that I make Rachel sit at the table to finish her homework (which may well have been the story she is showing her grandfather now) but she falls off her chair and ends up in casualty with a suspected broken arm. Fortunately it is only a soft-tissue injury,but this also meant she misses out on ballet for a few classes.

The Huntsman
******************
On this occasion the girls were spending the weekend with my father and stepmother. They had had a lovely afternoon with the dress-up box and play acting. Suddenly Susan heard shrieking and discovered Rachel and Ashleigh-Rose bailed up in the laundry with a huntsman spider above the door barring their freedom. Susan being Susan, and always one not to waste a photograph opportunity, disappeared and reappeared with her camera in hand and snapped the shot for prosperity before then freeing both the spider and the girls. (If on the other hand their youngest sister Heather had also been there she could have rescued them. Heather has never been afraid of spiders or of setting them free, even the red back spider she found in her bed one night when she turned back the bedsheets, fortunately before she climbed in.

Granddad Ivan (Southall)