On a very special day in February, the Governor of NSW came to our house to present the Medal of the Order of Australia to my ‘new’ mum, Mandy Noffs. She was lying in her bed at home, surrounded by family: My dad Wesley, my brother Matt, my husband Matty, my aunty and uncle, my nieces. My brother and I had always said to her, “We need to get you an OAM,” and she’d always said, “Don’t be silly!” Yet there we were, on a day overflowing with love.
I call her my new mum because I have two. There is old Mum – the old Mandy – who was incredible. She was the most loving, caring, compassionate person. So incredibly smart. She never said a bad word about anyone, and she was always the person who brought everyone together. I used to love making old Mum laugh. She had the funniest laugh, the kind that would turn into tears. If I were stressed or down, she would say, “You’ve got to roll with the ponchos, darling!”
And then there is new Mum, lying in her bed at home with Alzheimer’s, an illness she has lived with for many years. She doesn’t really know who I am. She doesn’t know what’s happening around her in the way old Mum knew instinctively. But on the day the Governor came to her bedside to honour Mum for her tireless work, I believe she knew in some way. The OAM was for old Mum, who had done so much for so many people. But it was also for new Mum, who was still there with us, still loved.
Mum had always been clever and glamorous and completely herself. She and my grandmother had a very fancy little dress shop in Double Bay called Coral Lea. They dressed Tina Turner, Liza Minnelli and Ita Buttrose. That was Mum’s world for a long time: Glamour, colour, big personalities. And I loved it. I used to take off my school shoes and put on high heels, wrap myself in the fabrics. It wasn’t much of a shock when I came home years later with my then-boyfriend Matty in tow.
I grew up knowing I had a special grandfather. Even now, when I say my last name, people look at me and say, “As in the Reverend Ted?” My father is Ted Noffs’ son, and after Mum married him, she wanted to be part of the world Ted had built through The Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. So she closed the shop and joined the Ted Noffs Foundation, studied law in her 50s and eventually became chief operating officer. The Australian Women’s Weekly even profiled her in 2007, with Mum saying: “I could see there were lots of people out there who were hurting and needed help.” She’d always wanted to give back, and she made good on that.
For a long time, Mum was the one who made things happen. Then, slowly, things began happening to her. She was only in her 50s when her Alzheimer’s started showing. I was running a restaurant with Matty in New York, and my parents would come over every year. I remember giving Mum some cash to count, and she counted, “One, three, seven.” She repeated it over and over. “One. Three. Seven.” I thought she was joking. Another time, Mum had organised a birthday party for Dad. “It’s on Sunday,” she kept saying – but then people started turning up on Saturday. She ran off into her room, confused and embarrassed. I felt so bad for her. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’ll have it on Saturday and Sunday.”
After that, the serious conversations began. The tests. The MRI. Dad was worried Mum would be angry about it, so I said, “We’ll all get one together.” It was 2018. Once we had the diagnosis, I decided to come home to Australia permanently. It was my turn to look after her. People say to me, “How awful, how devastating.” I don’t see caring for Mum that way. It is a privilege and an honour.
We got her a proper hospital bed at home and a wheelchair. She hated the wheelchair, so we would pretend it was a racing car. It’s funny, she never swore when she was younger. Now, when a nurse comes in and says, “Hi Mandy,” new Mum might say, “Get the f**k out of my room.” The nurse laughs, Mum laughs, and suddenly we’re all laughing. That’s how you deal with these things. With humour and love.
She doesn’t know who I am. That first happened four years ago; I walked into the room, and I could just tell she didn’t know me. But music still reaches her. When Mum would come to New York, Matty and I took her to Broadway shows. She had tears rolling down her face during The King and I. Now I play it for her, and she starts crying again. She’s forgotten everything else, but she knows the music. If I sing off-key, she shakes her head. “Nah, nah.” And when I get it just right, she nods and smiles and cries. And I think, ‘Oh my God. This is everything.’
Remarkably, all of this has brought me back to performing. My nan, Margaret, was the first person who took me to the theatre – The Phantom of the Opera at Sydney’s Theatre Royal – and that was it for me. I performed as a kid. I wrote school shows, bossed everyone around and made myself the star.
Later, after I auditioned for South Pacific, the accompanist said to me, “You have a beautiful voice. You just need to be more confident.” I’ve often thought about that. Nan used to say that, first and foremost, Ted was a showman. He understood that, if you wanted to reach people, you had to connect with them. In our family, performance and service were never separate things.
When I was working at the Ted Noffs Foundation, I met Mark Trevorrow, who created the Australian icon Bob Downe, at an event he hosted for us. I was obsessed with him as a boy – the face, the fruity brilliance. I would impersonate Bob, and Mum would cry with laughter.
A few years ago, I called Mark and sang Happy Birthday as Bob Downe. He cracked up, and that’s how I ended up playing Bob’s cross-eyed neppo nephew, Philip McKrevis, on tour with him. When I’d played one of his records to Mum, she’d yelled out, “Oh, he’s ridiculous!” The name of the tour became: CHOOSE BOB! 40 Ridiculous Years. I love that Mum named it.
To go from being that kid making Mum laugh in the kitchen to standing on stage all these years later feels surreal. When I performed my solo show, Broadway Baby!, it was the very last time Mum got out of the house. She sat in the audience in her wheelchair, talking to me on stage the whole time. When I mentioned cooking a Sunday roast, she called out, “He does. It’s true!” The whole night was like that. In a way, Mum is still with me every time I’m on stage. Not as she was before, but as this new version of her, who still knows music and timing, still knows when something is ridiculous.
Now, as she slowly fades away, people ask how she is, and I say, “She’s smiling.” I’ve been fortunate enough to have two mums: the mum before Alzheimer’s and the mum after Alzheimer’s. I miss old Mum every day. I miss her laughter and her dinner parties and her voice in my head. She gave me love, courage and a way to be in the world. But I love new Mum too. She has given me something I never expected. Through caring for her, singing to her, my voice has become stronger, and I understand myself better. Now, in this long goodbye, where I get to say thank you, and I love you all the time, she is still teaching me.
This very special story was written for The Weekly by Rupert Noffs. Rupert’s new show with Mark Trevorrow, ‘Old Friends’, opens on May 17 at Ginger’s in Sydney.
