Keith Jackson
At the very core of public relations is a desire to communicate. The aim may be education or persuasion. The method should always involve building effective relationships. The meaning is transmitted through information. The delivery channels are abundant, from advertising to the zoom player. On an idle afternoon I once drew up a list of 500 channels, and that was before the Internet provided so many more – and gave me something else to play with on idle afternoons.
PR is not just the province of professionals. While it can take the form of large, complex campaigns played out on the front pages of major newspapers, it can equally be adopted by individual citizens working to achieve their own goals.
Bernadette (Bernie) Williams lives with her husband Don at idyllic Taylors Beach, a small north Queensland hamlet midway between Townsville and Cairns. To the east is Ingham and to the west, across azure waters teeming with fish that make Don’s pulse race, is Orpheus Island national park.
When Don and Bernie met in the late eighties, they were both teachers in the Northern Territory. Don soared through the NT education system to become a school principal. A couple of years before, seeking a new challenge, Bernie had thrown her car on a freight truck in Adelaide and headed north to Darwin.
They discovered Taylors Beach while on leave and by the early nineties were ready to move from the desert to the coast. They built a house at the beach and Don completed a Master’s degree in education. Both worked as school counsellors, gradually easing back on the throttle with part-time work as retirement loomed. Life was good.
Then in 1999 IT happened. That’s what Bernie calls the major depression and anxiety disorder she still battles. Depression is a subject Bernie’s come to know well – and, after a long struggle, she’s written about it in ‘I need a bandaid for my brain’ - an honest, gritty and uplifting story of her fight against a debilitating condition that cut through her life – and Don’s life - in the most devastating way.
After writing the book, Bernie’s condition deteriorated – and she spent a long time in a Brisbane hospital. When she was discharged, she decided to self-publish the book and, as a modest piece of public relations, wrote a brief note to the local Herbert River Express alerting them about it in the context of International Mental Illness Week.
“Life changed!” says Bernie. When a journalist from the Express interviewed her about the book six
weeks ago all hell broke loose. Bernie was swamped with requests for advice, to address meetings, to start a new organisation and to meet the mayor. “I have met so many people and am just so thrilled. I never imagined a ten line email to a little local paper about would lead to this.”
More than 20 people attended the inaugural meeting of the Hinchinbrook Anxiety Depression Awareness Group including representatives from schools, police, ambulance, hospital, medical centres and the Shire Council. The group’s goal is to organise a program to develop community understanding of people suffering from mental illness.
“I have travelled this journey for a reason,” Bernie told me. “Instead of mourning the loss of teaching, I’m using my organisational and planning skills to educate the wider community on an issue that is still ignored in this day and age.”
Copies of I need a bandaid for my brain are available for $20, including postage, from Don and Bernie Williams, PO Box 29, Taylors Beach, Queensland 4850. Two dollars from the cover price goes to the Beyond Blue depression awareness and research organisation.
Photo: Bernie and Don Williams
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