Just before Christmas, Vanessa Blagden hosted a get-together at her home in Martinsville. Among the 20 guests was one of her close friends, Michael Chamberlain.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Dr Chamberlain had encouraged each guest to say what was the most beautiful thing about 2016 for them, and their hopes for the year ahead. When everyone else had answered, Michael Chamberlain shared his thoughts. He told of how excited he was about his research at the University of Newcastle, where he had been appointed a Conjoint Professor in the School of Education. And he was passionate about doing more for carers of those with disabilities.
“He had finally found his place again,” said Mrs Blagden. “He had lost so much, and he had found what he could contribute to Australia again.”
Yet that opportunity was lost on Monday night, when Michael Chamberlain died. He was aged 72. Many in the village of Cooranbong, the Lake Macquarie community where Michael Chamberlain had lived, worked, studied and worshipped in the Seventh Day Adventist church, have been shocked by his death.
“The man was fit,” said Bob Kalaf, of his long-time friend, fellow member of the church, and of the Cooranbong Chamber of Commerce. “I think he’ll always be a legend here in Cooranbong, because he was so community-minded. I think this has also been a safe place for him to live.”
For more than three decades, Michael Chamberlain and his former wife Lindy had to battle for justice, both through the legal system and in the minds of many in the public, over the death of their baby daughter, Azaria, who was taken from the family tent at Uluru in 1980. It took until 2012, but a fourth coronial inquest into Azaria Chamberlain’s death found that a dingo had taken the infant. In that time, the Chamberlains’ marriage ended.
Michael Chamberlain remarried, and he became a teacher, academic and author, including writing a history of Cooranbong, and a book about the family’s long fight for justice. At Avondale College, where he worked as an archivist, his writings are in the library. The college’s library services director, Michelle Down, said Dr Chamberlain had also been working on the campus last year.
Bob Kalaf said Dr Chamberlain’s long ordeal had “made him very reserved, very guarded”.
Vanessa Blagden said despite all he had endured, Michael Chamberlain remained a “such a caring, giving man”.
“He still believed in people, so wholeheartedly,” she said. “He never verbalised any bitterness.
“He was just a beautiful soul misunderstood by the public. Australia has lost somebody who was treated unfairly, but he fought the whole way [to show] that he was honest, and then he wanted to fight for others.”
