Andrea Hull visits

I had Andrea Hull staying for a few days. Andrea was, among other things in her career, head of the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne until two years ago. She serves on numerous boards in Australia as well as being a consultant to federal and state governments on arts and cultural development.

I first met her in 1981 when she came to Glasgow to brief me on a two-month lecture tour of Australia that I was to do in early 1982 - beginning in Darwin and ending in Perth visiting 15 or so towns and cities. She worked at the Australia Council (our arts council) which had invited me to do the lecture tour. While in Scotland on that occasion I took her on various visits to artists, groups and events one of which was a theatre performance by Easterhouse Theatre Group at the Edinburgh Festival for which it won a ‘Fringe First’ award.

This time she was here to dig around her Douglas family roots in Kircudbright/Castle Douglas and Haddington/Tranent. I took her to Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Trongate 103 and The Briggait. I’ve always described her as a ‘power woman’ and she’s lost none of that judging from the conversations we had.

David Harding