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November 25, 1936 to June 4, 2023
Jo Connolly had three great passions — for travel, politics and her husband Keith. All were lit early in her life and they burned until her death at the age of 86.
Born into a working-class Perth family, young Joan (Jo) Broomhall didn’t expect to venture far from Western Australia, despite the excitement she felt when glimpsing life in other lands. She later wrote that as a child she spent hours “looking at an old travel book that had belonged to my grandfather. The worn pages with pictures of India, China, the Khyber Pass and other exotic places fascinated me”.
Jo Connolly with locals and tourists in Lima, Peru, in the 1970s.Credit: Suppplied
In her late 30s, inspired by the writing of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who vanished in the Amazon rainforest in 1925, Jo left Australia for the first time. She travelled first in Europe and, more adventurously, in Latin America for six months in 1974. Upon her return, enabled by the Whitlam government’s policy of free tertiary education, she enrolled to study Spanish and Latin American history at LaTrobe University. There she would be further inspired by scholars Inga Clendinnen and Barry Carr.
Her studies and work as a tour guide complemented and enriched each other for the next 20 years. With Melbourne company Wandana Travel, Jo blazed a trail for Australians who wanted to visit South and Central America, regions not so accessible to tourists in the 1970s and 1980s as they are today. Jo led more than 20 tours to Latin America, her fluency in Spanish and her knowledge of the region’s histories and cultures making her expeditions richly memorable experiences for those Australians intrepid enough to join her on the Amazon River, at Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and many less well-known but no less beguiling places.
In the 1980s, with Travman Tours, Jo also guided groups of Australians around China. In 1989, she visited Tiananmen Square, witnessing protests there just hours before they were violently suppressed. At home in Melbourne, following a private trip to Cuba, she joined the Australia Cuba Friendship Society to foster cultural ties with the socialist republic.
Civilians stand on a government armoured vehicle in Beijing on June 4, 1989.Credit: AP
Jo believed in being a politically engaged citizen. Her father George Broomhall was a staunch trade unionist, her mother Joan a well-known Perth communist. While her grandfather’s book had offered glimpses of a world beyond Western Australia, her grandmother, Elizabeth Lister, was an important influence too. Her stories about being a suffragette in Lancashire and about her involvement in the Labor Party, the Spanish Relief Committee and Perth’s Modern Women’s Club impressed young Jo.
At 14, Jo was reprimanded at school for circulating the Stockholm “ban the bomb” petition. It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to the peace movement, the rights of indigenous peoples, opposition to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, the defence of government schools, abortion law reform and friendship with the people of Cuba.
She was no armchair revolutionary. For more than 50 years, she marched and organised; raising funds, writing letters, chairing meetings and cooking for fundraisers. As secretary of the Australia Cuba Friendship Society she arranged for brigades of Australians to work, learn and travel in Cuba. And in the 1980s and 1990s, Jo returned the hospitality of Cubans by hosting and befriending Cuban visitors, including heroes of their revolution.
She had a long and supportive marriage to journalist and film critic Keith Connolly, whom she met at 14 in her mother’s office, where Keith worked as a Peace Council organiser. Despite her youth and an eight-year gap in their ages, Jo and Keith became inseparable, eventually marrying in 1954, when Jo was only 17.
The politics of the 1950s led the couple to leave Western Australia, where Keith’s record as a former communist and peace activist made it difficult for him to find work as a journalist. But eventually they settled in Melbourne when Keith joined the staff of The Argus and then Sun newspapers. By the time Jo was 28, the pair had four children – Sharon, Steve, Linda and Rohan – and Jo was a full-time parent.
Jo Connolly in Cuba with Ramon Castro Ruz, a brother of the country’s long-time leader Fidel Castro, in the 1980s.
Nonetheless, in 1971 she resumed high school studies, then paused them after Keith narrowly survived surgery to remove a brain tumour. Keith was as proud as she was when Jo finally matriculated, and she later graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1979. The pair remained close even as Jo travelled the world. At times, the pair worked together in the Australia Cuba Friendship Society and they shared many interests in politics and the arts.
In 1995, their musician son Steve Connolly died suddenly. Jo struggled to recover from her grief. Retired from professional travel, she now helped to care for her grandchildren Andrea and David. And with Keith by her side she made some further journeys to Europe, Argentina and Vanuatu.
After Keith’s death in 2005, Jo became involved in Phoenix Park Neighbourhood House. There she took part in political discussion and writing groups, her past travels inspiring a stream of essays and stories. She was a member of its management committee and for some years curated its film discussion group.
As ill health shrank her physical world, Jo went on travelling in her mind. Now her windows to the larger world were world cinema on streaming services, international news and new friends from Iran. She continued being curious about life elsewhere and enriched by stories of societies far from home. And to the very end she remained an engaged supporter of people struggling to preserve life, land and culture everywhere.
Jo Connolly is survived by her children, Sharon, Rohan and Linda and her grandchildren Andrea and David.
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