Childhood Memories of Lisa and the Gerrard Family
You might have heard of Australian soundtrack composer Lisa Gerrard and female vocalist of cult band Dead Can Dance.
For 25 years now, Lisa has had a career writing, singing and composing music. She first entered the music scene in 1981 with Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance and together their music slowly developed world recognition with albums such as: Dead Can Dance, Serpents Egg, Into the the Labyrinth (and many more to name of).
Towards the late 1990′s, Dead Can Dance split and Lisa moved onto a solo career, composing soundtracks to movies such as: Ali, The Insider, Whalerider, Gladiator. She also collaborated with Pieter Bourke to compose two movie soundtracks such as The Insider and Ali, which each score won them two Golden Globe Awards.
My Connection with the Gerrard family.
Now moving towards my connection with the Gerrard family before Lisa took her first steps into the music scene. This is a personal recount of my childhood (and my mother Sue’s) memories of our friendship with the Gerrard family.
When I was toddler, mum searched for a creche to send me to while she worked throughout the day. On one particular day, mum first stumbled upon a creche called Leprechaun Child Minding Centre in South Yarra, Melbourne. The woman who ran the centre was Nanette Gerrard and it was her job to take care of local children during the week. Some days while Nanette was working her shift at the centre, her youngest son Mark Gerrard would arrive after school and spend time at the creche waiting for Nanette to finish for the day.
(Nanette holding my ice cream birthday cake as I blow out the candles.)
(Mark Gerrard at the Leprechaun Child Minding Centre.)
Mark was the youngest child to Nanette and John (senior) Gerrard. Their two older children were John (Junior) and Lisa, who use to live in a big house in Parkdale, Melbourne. I don’t really remember how mum and I became friends with the Gerrard’s but we use to spend a lot of time at their family home. On one occasion, as a young child I vividly remember being at John Jr’s 21st birthday party. At one stage I got up to dance to some music and Mark teased me about my terrible dancing 
!
Once I reached school age, Mark use to come spend his school holidays with me on my grandparents farm in Morac (near Mt Gambier, South Australia). Together Mark and I use to travel by coach to Mt Gambier from Melbourne and my Grandparents would come collect us.
During the two week stay on the farm, Mark use to climb the hay stacks on my grand folks property and would go on adventures amongst the hay stalls. On one occassion Mark came across a litter of helpless baby mice sleeping amongst strands of hay seeds. Carefully Mark collected each of the mice, wrapped them in his jumper (to keep warm) and climbed down the metal frame of the hay stack.
When my grandfather found out about the baby mice he was not amused! In his eyes, the mice were nothing but a huge pest that ate his horses’ feed and bred like crazy. I remember grandad asking Mark to get rid of the mice because he would not tolerate them!! The next day in front of my grandfather, Mark told grandpa that he disposed of the mice. However later in the evening, Mark privately told me that the mice were still alive and he’d hidden them in a safe place. That became our little secret that only us children knew of.
Another memory I hold close to my heart is the day I came to visit Mark at home and he was in his bedroom, strumming on his guitar. Mark told me he wanted to sing me a song which was Led Zepplin’s, Stairway to Heaven. He sang so sweetly.
As Mark grew older into manhood, our friendship grew appart. The last I heard of him, was his mother talking about how Mark was in London, playing his trumpet at a Dead Can Dance concert.
Many years later while I was in Melbourne, I decided to buy myself a copy of Dead Can Dance’s Spirtchaser. As I opened the CD’s cover and read its contents, it clearly had inscribed ”In Memory of Mark Gerrard”. This was a shock and thought to myself, ”Oh no what did this mean?”, “No, Mark can’t be dead!!” A few months later, I showed mum the CD cover and she was in shock as much as I was. For a long time, mum and I were both in denial that this was possibly true. A few years later, mum got in touch with Nanette and asked about Mark and sadly it was all true. Mark had passed away!!
Now here is a small section about Lisa that I can remember and some are recollections of what my mother had told me about her. Lisa is at least 11 years older than me and I was very young at the time when I first met her at the creche (and at her family home). In fact I would have been about 2 years old and Lisa was 13.
In the eyes of a young child, (especially by the time I reached 4 0r 5), I found Lisa very unusual. I remember being in the Gerrard’s kitchen which looked onto a room with a woodern dinning table. She was into Gothic styled clothes and music back then which I had never seen or heard before. In fact as I look back, I found it really quite terrifying because she would whiten her face with powder, wear purple lipstick and nail polish and she always dressed in black. Black seemed to be her favorite colour and often mum would tell me a story about how Lisa once painted her toilet black! 
Other stories that mum has shared over the years on a teenage Lisa, who as a young girl she use to sneak off to be with her friends and busker in the streets of Melbourne. Her mother Nannette was not impressed and would complain to my mum: ” oh what am I going to do with Lisa?”(Never knowing that her daughter would take that busking a huge step further by oneday becoming a world famous composer! 
)
The last time I saw Lisa, when I was about the age of 10. On one occasion I came over to the Gerrard’s for a visit and walking into the loungeroom, Lisa was sitting on a her mother’s couch with Brendan Perry!! As I came close to Lisa, she said “hello Penny, how are you?” and I said “hello” in return. I think I took it all for granted back then of who Lisa was. However I do remember once telling her sister-in-law when I was a teenager, that I had this feeling that “Lisa was going to become very famous oneday” and how right I was!!
Below are some videos from youtube of Lisa during her Dead Can Dan Days and a solo projects.
Dead Can Dance
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Lisa Gerrard’s solo projects
Gladiator
Sacrifice(Collaboration with Pieter Burke)
As I listen to Lisa sing in this video, it brings tears to my eyes. Its so breath taking!!
Lisa’s Official website:
Info on Lisa’s Australian Tour here: http://www.frontiertouring.com.au/currenttours/Lisa_Gerrard__Australian_Tour
Here is a mp3 player of Lisa Gerrard and Dead Can Dance songs … enjoy!
http://www.seeqpod.com/music/?plid=445efa9513
Penny said,
April 22, 2007 at 9:15 am
Review of Lisa Gerrard’s concert at QPAC on 5th April 2007,
by Jason Nahrung(6 April 2007):
LISA Gerrard is an enigma: one of Australia’s most powerful voices, as revealed in Brisbane on Thursday night, but living hermit-like in regional Victoria; a Golden Globe winner for her work on the Gladiator soundtrack, but shunning celebrity and commercialisation. She feels a very strong connection to the natural world, but her music relies heavily on synthesised sound.
What is it about this singer/composer that draws hundreds of people, from urban chic and city casual to goth and hippie mostly in the 30+ years range, to hear her perform often in a language of her own making?
Perhaps it’s the sheer emotion of the voice as instrument: the hair rising on the back of the neck, a shiver running down the spine, on more than one occasion as she moved effortlessly from the deepest blues low to thrilling high. Or perhaps it is the mastery and purity of that voice. She was always in control, Gerrard, over every note: she never moved her feet during a song, and only occasionally her hands. The performance was in her face, a very personal journey through each song, and in the amazing voice.
This was her first solo tour of her home country, backed by long-time Dead Can Dance touring member John Bonner on keyboards and, on piano, synthesiser and Gerrard’s trademark instrument of choice, the yangqin, Michael Edwards, who collaborated with her on last year’s solo album, The Silver Tree, as well as touring with the Dead Can Dance reunion in 2005. Also lending occasional backing vocals was Andrew Hutton, a friend since Gerrard’s teenage years and creator of her performance dresses.
This tour, with sell-out appearances in Sydney and Melbourne, hinged off her recently released greatest hits album. The set list – flashing by over 90 minutes – included plenty of that collection, spanning her name-making time in Dead Can Dance in the 80s and 90s as well as solo and soundtrack offerings, culminating with Now We Are Free from Gladiator.
The reliance on backing tapes and synthesisers, with live piano and keys, gong and yangqin, was a minor disappointment, given Gerrard’s capacity to mix electronica and world music in her compositions. Even a touch of live percussion and bass guitar in funk moments, when her hips actually swayed to the music, would have added another layer to the performance. A faint hiss in the speakers was particularly disconcerting during the quiet moments – for Gerrard, the silences are as important as the peaks – and especially during a gorgeous a capella reading of The Wind That Shakes the Barley and the following lullaby, with piano only, that provided the encore.
The stage was simply set, the piano and keyboards the main features sitting in pools of white material, with two drops of white down the black rear curtain, and simple but effective washes of light setting the mood, from placid green and blue to vibrant red, and occasional mirror-ball effects for funkier moments.
This was very much Gerrard’s show. She cut an authoritative figure, starting the night in a purple dress and ending in white, but also showed good humour when one song didn’t quite end when it was meant to. It was the white dress that offered the essential ingredient to the concert’s transcendental moment: Gerrard, spotlit in a wash of red and blue, her soaring vocals telling a tale of magnificent tragedy that brought to mind Cassandra on the walls of Troy, or perhaps mighty Hera herself.
While others might not have shared that particular vision, a standing ovation at concert’s end showed they too were clearly buoyed by Gerrard’s oracle-like presence. More than 20 years after Gerrard left Australia to find success with Dead Can Dance, she has made a stirring home-coming tour.
from: http://www.news.com.au/sundaymail/story/0,,21513998-5003421,00.html
jenny bohner said,
June 7, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Dear Penny, I was at John Junior,s 21st, too! I remember Lisa had done my make-up for me and Istill do my eye-shadow the way she showed me. A livewire called Annie and I were in ‘Oklahoma’ with Nan and Lisa,though we got into a lot of strife for laughing when we weren’t supposed to. LIsa was the most glamourous cowgirl you’d ever see,with her mass of blonde curls swept up and a hat on top. Nan and Lisa had an amazing clothes boutique where we used to sit and chat. Lisa was so kind to me and made me feel special at a time I really needed support. The whole family was very hospitable and there was always a lot of laughter in the house.I have a drawing I did of Lisa at that wooden table you mentioned. I would love to paint her again if she would like. thanks for the info. I enjoyed reading it! Jenny
Penny said,
April 29, 2007 at 8:57 am
Today (Sunday, 29th April 2007 at 3.00pm), after viewing ‘Sanctury: Lisa Gerrrard’ on ABC (channel 2), was a portrait of Lisa’s own background history and musical career. This documentary got me in touch with my own childhood experiences of growing up in South Yarra, Melbourne (near where Lisa grew up with her parents and brothers), as an infant. The discriptions Lisa discribed of her inspirations being surrounded by ethnic communities, such as Italian, Greek, Irish, etc came flooding back to my own early years at the ‘Leprechaun Child Minding Centre’. The centre was made up of children of many different nationalities.
Throughout the program, Nanette and John (snr) Gerrard both appeared as guest speakers, discussing different aspects of Lisa’s life which was rather intriguing. To see her parents made me realize that they have not changed much since I last saw them 17 odd years ago (maybe looking alittle older). Also the show gave small glimpses of Lisa’s nephew ‘Ben Gerrard’ who I use to baby sit as a teenager along with his brother ‘Michael’ when they were small children.
Lisa’s discussion of ‘Mark Gerrard’s’ death brought pain and grief to the composer which lead her to put ‘Dead Can Dance’ behind her for awhile to become a solo musician. In someways, this brought me back to when I first learnt of Mark’s death. Maybe I wasn’t as grief stricken as much as Lisa would have been but I understand how she must have felt because it was pure shock to discover that a young man’s life was now gone. It took me several years to except Mark’s death. However In recent times, I now realize that those memories I have of a young boy exhibiting his tender side by taking care of those baby mice have since become a precious memory I now keep with me always. Mark was truely a lovely child and that’s how I will always remember him.
I guess for those of you who read this, are more likely to be fans of Lisa’s music and yes I truely believe she is a pure genious of our times, just like classical composers: Beethoven or Bach were or their time. However, as I write this, I can’t help to capture the other side of the artist’s life as I have known her and her family best. As Lisa is so much older than I am and she mostly lived in London with Brendan Perry as I was growing up, I never got the chance to know her as I would have liked. Instead I grew up knowing Lisa’s family which was the next best thing (an essence of her background to which lead her to become what she is today)!!
Below is a link on information on the program ‘Sanctury: Lisa Gerrard’ that appeared on ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200704/programs/ZY8670A001D29042007T150000.htm
danielle gerrard said,
October 4, 2007 at 8:17 am
i am Lisa’s 2nd cousin! i am NOT joking my mums name is Joanne Gerrard. !!!! My name is Danielle Gerrard
abbi gerrard said,
October 5, 2007 at 8:44 am
hi i am a gerrard and i dont know most of my family i am 12 and my mom’s name is bernie gerrard and my brother and sister name is steph gerrard and adam gerrard
danielle gerrard said,
October 22, 2007 at 4:50 am
no i am seriose u r just a gerrard i am acctually a GERRARD
danielle gerrard said,
October 22, 2007 at 4:51 am
and i am 12
Penny said,
October 22, 2007 at 8:20 am
Danielle can I ask you what John (jnr) Gerrard’s first wife’s name is?
Penny said,
December 14, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I found this interview of Lisa on ABC’s ‘Sunday Arts’ interesting! The Interveiwer was Virginia Trioli and the web link is:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/txt/s1870789.htm
——————————————————————
Transcript of interview with Lisa Gerrard
VIRGINIA TRIOLI:Lisa Gerrard, thanks for joining us on Sunday Arts.
LISA GERRARD: Thank you.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: There are two places that play a very big role in your life, Drouin and Hollywood, they’re not quite sister cities, are they, those two places?
LISA GERRARD: No, not really. But when it comes to making music, it’s a kind of cave-like culture where it doesn’t really matter where you are because you go within the infrastructure of your mind and your imagination.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So, you mean you could make the sort of music that you make anywhere?
LISA GERRARD: Well, I’ve often thought, you know, with the different venues that I’ve played at and things, that once the lights go out, it doesn’t matter whether it’s La Scala or the Moe Pub.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs)
LISA GERRARD: It’s really the same thing.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You’ve once said that, I think, that Wild horses couldn’t get you out of the Australian bush, though. So that part of Gippsland is very important to your work, isn’t it?
LISA GERRARD: It’s very important for me to be able to connect with that frequency because I find that the work has such a fragile centre, and, you know, because I was born here, that there are certain frequencies that I grew up with in the abstract and I find those to be a refuge and a starting point. That’s very important, it’s contemplative.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Can you take that with you, though, when you’re composing? Because I know there was an amazing moment where the tyranny of distance was clearly too much for one filmmaker you were working with, Michael Mann, who got you to move over to the States and he literally cloned your recording studio in the States.
LISA GERRARD: I know.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: And that was component for component, true?
LISA GERRARD: Yes.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Did something of that place come with you to that studio?
LISA GERRARD: No, it wasn’t really necessary for him to do that because my work’s in my heart. But it was a lovely gesture, and it was very impressive.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs) Let’s go back to those early days that I mentioned before when you were a young person and you headed off to London, how old were you when that happened?
LISA GERRARD: I was 19, I think.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: What were your musical circumstances then, what were you doing musically?
LISA GERRARD: Well, I began playing in pubs when I was about 14, which I was punished and forced to join a light operatic society.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Who punished you exactly?
LISA GERRARD: My parents were…thought, “If she’s going to insist on doing music… ..we’ll put her into the Light Operatic Society.”
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I’m sure it wasn’t punishment, Lisa. (Laughs) It was hell on earth,
LISA GERRARD: and I didn’t know any of the words. In fact, my personal assistant now, I met then, he was on lights, he was the same age as me and he was also being punished when he was sent there.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs) So the light opera was not for you?
LISA GERRARD: Definitely not, no, no. We did ‘Oklahoma’. And that killed musicals for me, I think, permanently.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So did you literally do a runner from this sort of life?
LISA GERRARD: Well I never connected with rational practicality when it comes to musicality.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Mm-hm.
LISA GERRARD: I can’t see how the two things live together.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: But what sort of music were you doing in the pubs?
LISA GERRARD: Playing yangqin and piano accordion and singing.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Mm. Did the audiences like it?
LISA GERRARD: No, no, of course they didn’t. They would say, “Get off, get your clothes off, shut up!”, you know. I mean, it was awful but it was wonderful because I believed, when I was there, that I was going to change the world and feeling that I had something so precious and so important.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: And in the meantime, people are getting their noses bitten off.
LISA GERRARD: I know, but when you’re young you’re completely oblivious to that.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So how did London call? How did that beckon to you?
LISA GERRARD: Well, it wasn’t my idea, it was the person I wrote music with, in Dead Can Dance, Brendan Perry. That he said, “Nobody’s interested in our work in Australia” and I couldn’t connect with that at all, I felt that we were doing the things that were meant to be done, in some way, something was being changed in the abstract. And he wanted to go to London and I said, “OK, I’ll come to London.” So we went to London and we lived in severe poverty for quite a while, but because we had our work, it was our saving grace, it didn’t matter.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: About that time, you said that because there was no money and therefore not much of a social life, it just turned you both right into the crucible of making music, of making that work.
LISA GERRARD: Exactly, and reading, because we both joined the local library which had the most extraordinary collection of books, especially in the basement.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Mm-hm.
LISA GERRARD: But the sort of books that we were reading were anthropological works and poems of anthropological kinds and looking into different spirituality.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: When you were living and working there and life was pretty hard financially, you found though, didn’t you, that there was an audience for the music you were doing with Dead Can Dance. What did you perceive about the appreciation of that time? What were people getting in your music, do you think?
LISA GERRARD: I was surprised when I got to London that I’d actually thought that the music that was happening in Melbourne was more innovative and interesting. Yeah, I was surprised that it wasn’t as risky. See that is the thing that by having the pubs around Melbourne at that time when I was young, they had stages in them for music. And even though they may not have been romantic with the lights on…
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs)
LISA GERRARD: ..they provided a space for a poet. So I was surprised when I got to London that there was a kind of modern mentality within the art world, which I was surprised by.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You sing in an interesting way, in many cases, where you use your own language. It’s not a recognisable language, it’s your vocal vocabulary, if you like. I wonder where that comes from? Does that come first or is that a thought after the music itself?
LISA GERRARD: It comes directly from a response to the music, an automatic response, and each piece of music has its own language.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Are you trying to avoid understandable speech for a reason? Does that get in the way of what you’re trying to do musically?
LISA GERRARD: No, because sometimes English words turn up in my work and I don’t censor them, I leave them there.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: There’s such a melancholic quality to a great deal of your work. Are you aware of a particular emotion that’s being tapped into when you compose, when you sing?
LISA GERRARD: I feel, sometimes I feel a mixture of deep love and safety, and even though your work sounds, it’s always been put with really sad things. When I’m singing it, I don’t feel sad, I feel hope.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So then how do you balance that? This sublime state that you describe with the harsh reality then of dealing with Hollywood, with the people of Hollywood, with the filmmakers, with perhaps even the actors and that entire industry? Do you find it difficult to reconcile those two parts of your working life?
LISA GERRARD: I have a great sense of humour and…
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: That would get you by.
LISA GERRARD: Yes. You have to have a really good sense of humour when you do this work.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Do you have to also be hard and insistent when you need to be?
LISA GERRARD: I can’t ever do that, ever.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: But is it…
LISA GERRARD: Because if I do that – without cutting you off –
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Mm.
LISA GERRARD: I risk losing the sensitivity that it takes for me to make my work.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Surely as a musician, you must always be pushing against the changes, the corruptions, the compromises, to your work?
LISA GERRARD: That doesn’t, I don’t make soup, I don’t make soup.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: How do you avoid making soup?
LISA GERRARD: By staying in contact with my arrogant vision.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You have to work then with directors who are going to respect…
LISA GERRARD: They work with me because of that. So I only work with artists.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: That’s why the connection, clearly, with the director, Michael Mann, has been such a good and strong one in the movie, ‘The Insider’, and also ‘Heat’, which visually almost works as a piece of music too. Who are the other directors that you’ve enjoyed working with, Lisa?
LISA GERRARD: Ridley Scott I really liked.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: On ‘Gladiator’?
LISA GERRARD: He’s a real artist, in fact, if he wasn’t doing movies, I’m sure he’d be doing masters, like, big paintings.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs) Yes, I can see that.
LISA GERRARD: You can see that, can’t you? And I really liked working with Niki Caro because…
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: This was on ‘Whale Rider’?
LISA GERRARD: Yeah. Um, she just stayed on the couch with me in the studio, ’cause I work very long hours when I do a film. And, um, she’d sleep and wake up and then she’d tell me, “No, no, don’t do that, yes, do that.” She was very without any connection with any political hierarchy.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I’m thinking of the film ‘Baraka’ for which you did the score. And there’s astonishingly potent scenes in there, for example, the scavengers on the rubbish heaps trying to eke out a living and then we see shots of homeless people on the street as well.
LISA GERRARD: Yes.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: When you have images that powerful and layered with that is your voice, which is powerful but operating at a different emotional level, then that’s potentially the two working together for almost anyone, of any background and speaking any language, to get.
LISA GERRARD: I wrote the piece of music that’s used in ‘Baraka’ in that particular area…
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: In that sequence?
LISA GERRARD: ..in that sequence. It was amazing because I remember when Brendan and I were working on that particular piece of music, it was like being in contact with angels, rough angels, raw, and I felt that this is exactly where, if God is going to send his love, he’s going to send his love to these places.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You were speaking before about zoning out from the politics, the hits and the cruelty, perhaps, of that Hollywood world. I know that in your experience, you’ve met some people there you’ve found to be quite benign, if not more than that, such as Russell Crowe, the actor, who gets a bit of bad press but you have a different view of him, don’t you?
LISA GERRARD: He’s a deeply sensitive, very, very intelligent man who simply probably gets very tired. And I don’t think people realise how tired and how tiring the work is. And how exposed that someone like him, especially when he goes to that very, very deep level of the work, how exposed and fragile he must become afterwards.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Lisa, you’re about to commence, I think, your first national tour of Australia, is that right?
LISA GERRARD: Yes.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: What’s taken you so long? (Laughs)
LISA GERRARD: Money.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: (Laughs)
LISA GERRARD: You get that.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Oh, yes.
LISA GERRARD: Um, it sort of been because we’ve always started in Ireland and we’ve always broke-even on the tours and had to be very careful because we don’t come through the mainstream of music, you see. The music has a very long shelf life but it’s sells very slowly. So we’ve had to, in order to be able to keep working, we’ve had to be very careful financially. And coming to Australia was always that unknown quantity, that the promoters here were sort of, “But nobody knows who you are… And where did you play last, the Crystal Ballroom… or the Rising Sun Hotel in Richmond, what sort of…?”
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I remember those venues, Lisa.
LISA GERRARD: I know. Do you?
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Those were the days.
LISA GERRARD: I had a residency at the Rising Sun Hotel in Richmond.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Now see, that’s something to be proud of.
LISA GERRARD: I know. I had three people who used to come and see me every time I played there.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Lisa Gerrard, thanks so much for joining us on Sunday Arts.
LISA GERRARD: Thank you. © 2007 ABC | Privacy Policy
Mark said,
December 20, 2007 at 11:00 am
Hi Jenny my name is Mark Gerrard, i am Lisa Gerrards 1st cousin. I am the son of Bob Gerrard . I believe Danielle is who she says she is as joanne ( her mother is my sister who i have not seen in nearly 20 yrs). If you know the family you would know that John snr ( uncle Jack ) had a brother (my father) that was killed in a car accident in 1980. That was the last time i ever saw Lisa ,was at dad’s funeral. All i remember is myself and Joanne hiding behind the couch laughing at her ( ask her i’m sure she will remember if you are in contact). I also know Mark is no longer with us. I dont even know john jnrs first wifes name. I think by what danielle has written i could be her uncle and have never met her. Lisa is very talented and an insperation to the younger generation that carry the surname. My daughter has just been acepted into the australian youth chior, if she has half Lisa’s talent im sure she will go along way. You never know oneday one of her friends mayhave a website like this about her, and another chapter will be written in this very coulorful family names history. Thanks
Penny said,
December 31, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hello Mark,
Thanks for responding to this blog and a sharing a bit about your family association with the Gerrards….I thought I would mention that my name is Penny by the way (as in Penelope), not Jenny!
I have not been in touch with the Gerrard family for about 10-15 years, although I spoke to Nanette on the phone about a year ago. She seems well.
I do not know much about John and Nanette’s outer family as well as my mother and grandmother did/do. I was only very young when mum use to spend time with the Gerrard family, although when I was a teenager I use to baby sit Lisa’s nephews Ben and Michael Gerrard when they were small children. (I have some photos of Ben, Michael and myself somewhere from those times. Once I find the photos, I will add them to this blog). John’s first wife (I think I was told he remarried), was Michael and Ben’s mother.
Once I think about it, John snr came to visit mum and me when we first moved to Geelong from Melbourne in the early 1990′s. That must be the last time I saw him.
I just spoke to my mum about your dad Mark and she said that she knew about Jack’s death. I guess my grandma Ruby would have known about him too because she had a lot of association with the Gerrard family. She even went to Lisa’s wedding, however grandma could not tell me much these days because she is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease.
Anyway Mark, I want to wish your daughter all the best with her singing career. Maybe she will be as famous as Lisa one day. It seems that natural gifts run in the Gerrard family. ….John Snr has a magnificent Irish singing voice!
Ben Gerrard said,
February 24, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Penny! This is Ben, Lisa’s nephew – the boy you used to babysit. I would love to see the photo’s you have of us when i was a baby. I still remember, vividly being looked after by you. My mum and I often talk about you and just last christmas when i was staying with grandma(nannette) and lisa – we were all talking about you and your mother hoping you were ok – then I stumble on this site you’ve made!
Im an actor now. I live in sydney – just graduated from NIDA. done a few commercials and tv guest spots like All Saints and just finished a play called Silvertop Ash and am about to start a 5 month Shakespeare tour around the East of Australia!
Would be great to get in contact properly sometime
Lots of Love – Ben Gerrard
xx
Michael & Ben's Mother said,
April 28, 2008 at 2:08 am
Hello Penny – Ben is down in Melbourne (see above) from Sydney; he told me he’d found your blog site here… since we last saw each other, I’ve had my name slightly altered by Deed Poll … my initials are now A.J. … How is your mother? Do you both still live in Victoria?
The comment from 1st cousin ‘Mark Gerrar’ – son of Bob… John Snr did have a brother who died in 1980 in a car accident, I believe. It was also the year I met Michael and Ben’s father.
John Jnr and Michael, our eldest son are living and working in Labrador, Queensland at the moment.
By the way, Lisa’s concert in Melbourne last year was just wonderful! I went with Nannette, John Snr and the Ferguson’s (Joan and Ron) also Lisa’s daughter, Lashna… Ben went to Lisa’s Sydney concert.
Lisa is looking well, and is beautiful! Her voice – Magnificent! I feel priviliged to have been a part of their dynamic, multi-talented family – I love them all!
Warm Regards, Penny & please pass on my good wishes to your mother, Sue. – A.J. -
mark gerrard said,
October 19, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hi penny this is begining to be a bit of a family reunion. I have never met ben but it is good that he is doing well. I have set up a myspace site to contact long lost family including cousins and neices, display name is (marjanar).I hpoe you do not mind me doing this as it has been many years since any contact and as i am getting older i am interested in what they are all up to. Regards and all the best to you Mark
Adrián González Guillén said,
April 8, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Dear Gerrard family:
My name’s Adrián González Guillén. I’m a nature photographer, malacologist (the author of the book Cuba the landshells Paradise, please check on editorial site: http://www.gretaeditores.com, US distributor: http://www.mdmshellbooks.com, European distributor: http://www.conchbooks.de ), and also I´m a glyptic miniature carver on seashells and semiprecious stones. My forthcoming book entitled ¨Polymita the most beautiful landshell of the world¨ will be dedicate to Lisa Gerrard because her music join me in my hard photographing treesnails tripson my country hills during the past two years and I want to find the way to give her the book when I publish it…¿Did you can help me on that task? Just let me know If there´s any way to help me on my personal quest…and send me personal mails if it´s Ok to you.
I´m living since four months ago in Ecuador with my lovely wife..our mail is: iradys.caballero@gmail.com
Sincerely yours…
ADRIÁN
Mari Bartlett said,
October 24, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Hello Penny, My name is Marie Bartlett nee Gallagher. I am also Lisa’s first cousin – My mum, Iris, was Nanette’s baby sister. Sadly, Mum passed away in 1989. I have three siblings, Ita, john and Trevor.
I have fantastic memories of the Gerrards visiting us in Birmingham. They used to stay with Nan ( our Grandma )I also have a vivid memory of Mark chasing me up stairs with a coat hanger! Mark also spent sometime one summer staying at my parents’ house and recall my brother saying that by the end of the first week Mark was known by everyone in the neighbourhood. He was just a lovely guy. The last time I saw the Gerrards was when I stayed with them in Melbourne in 1991 – Lisa was pregnant with Lashna at the time. It was also the last time I saw Mark.
Lisa is such a ttalent and I only hope that some of the Graynoth genes filter through to my own girls.
I am so pleased to have found this site. Thank you Penny, Marie
warren said,
March 20, 2010 at 12:39 am
Can anyone update on Lisa’s personal life (as of March 2010)?
Still living in Vic? Married? Single? Children?
Oz tour plans?
usequeChehaws said,
December 7, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Hi, very interesting post, greetings from Greece!