We are now sailing south towards what I call Melba land. Having been occupied with writing the life of Melba for the last five years, I still seem to see the world in terms of where she was and what she felt. In a few days’ time, as we sail down the North Queensland coast, we will pass by the sugar city of Mackay.  Though a remote town in Melba’s time, it played a crucial role in Melba’s life. Without it, she may never have become a professional singer, let alone the most famous opera singer of her age.

Melba came to Mackay  as a troubled  twenty- one-year-old. Back in her home town of Melbourne, she had just witnessed the deaths of her beloved mother and baby sister, and she was desperate to throw off her grief. In these circumstances, it was not so surprising that she fell almost instantly in love with the town’s most dashing bachelor: Charlie Armstrong, a baronet’s son who worked as a drover and horse breaker. Ignoring her father’s objections, she married Charlie, gave birth to a child, and attempted to adjust to life as a Mackay housewife.

She soon found that she could not adjust. The heat, the rain, the baby  and Charlie’s temper all wrought havoc with her nerves. The one bright spot was a travelling opera company that played a brief season in Mackay. She quickly realized that she could sing as well as any of its stars. Her one thought now was to become an opera singer, make plenty of money, and settle herself and husband and son in a more tolerable place. She returned to her father’s house in Melbourne and began to study singing seriously.

It’s always fun to play “what if”. What if she had married a less adventurous husband, settled in Melbourne, and adopted the comfortable middle-class life that her married sisters led. Would she have become one of the most famous women of her time, and our most famous Australian to date?  It’s a hard question to answer, but possibly not. It could be argued that Mackay was the catalyst that brought about her fame. Without Mackay, she may never have been “marvellous Melba” or our own Dame Nellie.

My husband Geoffrey and I visited Mackay back in 2004, and I found myself the first biographer of Melba to set foot there. The local newspaper library yielded rich material, not only concerning Melba’s life in the town, but also  her later life as an opera singer. Mackay exulted in her fame, and its local paper carried many useful snippets, gleaned from the international news services, regarding her doings in Europe and America. Though, like Geoffrey,  I believe that one should do one’s own research rather than entrust it to assistants - for doing one’s own research is the first step in assimilating the facts -  I gained a dear friend and most useful helper during my research among the newspapers. This was Berenice Wright, a local historian. We keep in touch by phone and net, and I wish this ship was docking at Flat Top Island near the mouth of the Mackay river, so we could see each other.