Robots

The first year I participated in the parade was 1989. One Sunday afternoon session at the Oxford I met the Order of Perpetual Indulgence. They we making Safe Sex packs, one of the first responders to the HIV crisis. One Sister Mary Daisy Chain (David Edwards) told me about the Mardi Gras workshop and how they needed volunteers to help them with their infamous “Fred Nile’s Head on a Platter” effigy. I had viewed the parade the year before from the awning of the Exchange Hotel with my boyfriend of the time and some of his mates.

So I volunteered at the workshop in Rushcutters Bay during the McDiarmid/Tully era. I cut blue cellophane sheets into feathers for wings that were attached to blow moulded cupie dolls that became angels on sticks. The workshop crew offered me a position in the parade pushing one of the tin toy robots which was a Mardi Gras entry. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from this year.