Mary and Brian Mennis

Introduction by Mary Mennis

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I am the third daughter of Sir John and Lady Rene Eccles. I was born in Sydney in 1938. 

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My parents had nine children pictured here in January 1964 at my wedding. It was the last photograph  of the family all together. From left Dad, Mum Rose, Peter, Alice William, Mary, John, Judith Frances and Richard.

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Our father was a neuro-physiologist and worked in Oxford, Sydney, Dunedin and the ANU in Canberra. This meant the family lived in a variety of places As a child I remember seeing a beautiful Pacific canoe in the Otago Museum in Dunedin, and was fascinated by its intricate design and carved hull.  This instilled in me a love of canoes. Years later when I lived in Papua New Guinea, I studied the large canoes and even wrote a manual about a triple-deck one with a small shelter and a large sail.

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 After I returned from PNG in 1982, I studied the Eccles family history and wrote Hullo Eccles  about the Eccles family and Book of Eccles about my father’s life. Recently James Chalcroft and I published my father’s autobiography, MyLife -Long Search For The “Self” In Ourselves.

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I had visited my father in Switzerland in 1991 and he gave me a copy of his autobiography then. At last it is published. The cover pictured here is by Christian Scudamore. 

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For a detailed overview of my life and family in Papua New Guinea and when I wrote my books see my story here.