When Michael Bryce fell in love with a determined young woman, his life changed forever. Now she is the nation’s first female Governor-General, Ms Quentin Bryce, and the love story has spanned a lifetime, writes Michael Sheather
Michael Bryce remembers the moment he realised Quentin was the woman he wanted to marry. “She would have been 18 or 19 at the time,” recalls Michael, now 71. “It was the early 1960s and I’d been at university for a couple of years by then.
“She’d been in and out of my focus for a while, then one day, she just appeared. We were on the Gold Coast; she was with a group of friends. I saw this skinny girl with white hair. It was all curly and sticking up. She was tanned and walking through a hotel foyer. Even today, it’s like a picture imprinted on my mind.
“I knew from that moment I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
And what an extraordinary life that has been. Quentin Bryce carved out a distinguished career, first as a lawyer, mother and feminist, then as the federal sex discrimination commissioner under the Hawke government. She then broke ground as the first female governor of Queensland, before becoming Australia’s first female governor-general in 2008.
Yet, as Quentin Bryce, 67, would be the first to acknowledge, these are accomplishments she has not achieved completely on her own. Standing beside her through all that time was Michael, a man who led no less a distinguished career of his own, as well as being a devoted husband, confidant, father and grandfather.
Quietly spoken, but with strong and considered opinions, Michael is one of the country’s leading architects and designers, a member of the Australian Design Hall of Fame, a former federal president of the Industrial Design Institute of Australia and a winner of the House of the Year Award. He was also the driving force behind such enduring logos as those for the Wallabies, the National Trust, the ring-tailed possum of the National Parks and Wildlife Service and even the Sydney Opera House-inspired 2000 Olympics logo which marketed Australia to the world.
While regarded as something of an icon in the design community, Michael remains largely unknown to the general public. And yet, his role in Quentin’s success – as her self-appointed minder in a sometimes gruelling vice-regal schedule – is as vital today as it has ever been.
Michael met Quentin at primary school in Camp Hill, Brisbane, when he was a teenager and she was aged about nine. “Quentin was a close friend of my sister and she was always at our house, in and out. She’d moved to Brisbane from the country, when her father came to manage a wool scour nearby.”
Quentin moved away and Michael didn’t see her again until they met again at the University of Queensland, in the early ’60s. “At first, I didn’t really notice her, even though she was pretty active in student affairs. We were both going out with other people,” says Michael.
“But, eventually, we moved into the same circle of friends and started going out, and I asked her to marry me. She remembers more about it than I do.
“She remembers exactly what she was wearing – pearl earrings and a blue dress, and that we ate coq au vin for dinner at the Belvedere Hotel. Her memory is so good – she can remember every occasion and appointment she has had in her life.”
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