Anecdotes and photographs of the redoubtable Shirley Shackleton , widow of newsman Greg Shackleton , one of the Balibo Five newsmen murdered during the l975 Indonesian invasion , who died recently in Melbourne , aged 91, are surfacing .
The above historic photo shows Shirley , centre , with author Michele Turner next to her , who wrote extensively about East Timor under the heading TELLING - East Timor : Personal Testimonies 1942-1992 .
Turner, born Hobart , Tasmania , attended La Trobe University , Melbourne , wrote the best selling book Stuck, about Australia's unemployed , Her grandfather had been an Australian commando in Timor during WW ll, helped survive by the Timorese during the Japanese invasion of what was then a Portuguese colony .
After the Indonesian invasion ,she spent 10 years working on the book ,which involved contact with Shirley Shackleton. Her wide ranging testimonies included details of Japanese atrocities and the help and assistance given other Australian servicemen, apart from the commandoes .
She publicly denounced Gough Whitlam for failing to support Timor's struggle for independence against Indonesia, and said she suffered psychologically from fears of aggravating the situation for the Timorese by exposing Indonesian atrocities.
Some material from the book was used by the ABC's Social History Unit to produce East Timor: A Debt to Repay, which won the 1991 Human Rights Award for the best radio documentary.
Turner's involvement in the East Timor struggle included promoting Midnight Oil’s use of the Timorese Choir in Sydney . Martin Wesley Smith joined in the recording of the choir , played a guitar and added his voice to the singing . Turner backed journalist John Pilger’s visit to East Timor to film Death of a Nation.
Turner , who died tragically in Tasmania , aged 43, is commemorated by the Michele Turner Collection , an extensive ,wide ranging bibliography dealing with Timor , Japan , West Papua , available on the A Fairer World social justice hub, Tasmania , Global Resource Library .
In the photograph at the head of this post , beIieved to be in Sydney , the person holding bottles next to Shirley Shackleton is the late Martin Wesley-Smith, a lecturer at Sydney Conservatorium of Music and an electronic music pioneer, who assisted Turner when she was writing her book ..
Shackleton and Turner are both sporting Timor Tais hand woven cloth across a shoulder
Standing at the back of Shirley is twin brother Peter Wesley-Smith, a onetime Hong Kong law lecturer and librettist . The twins , with agronomist brother Robert Wesley-Smith, of Darwin, far right in the snap , were all awarded the Ordem de Timor Leste for their support over the years .
UPCOMING : The search for Shirley Shackleton's song .
