The River of No Return

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YOU'LL BE BLOWN AWAY BY WESTERLY WINDINA

LUNCH AT GREENOUGH'S PYRAMID

NATHAN HEDGE'S REDEMPTION TALE

CAN ANDREW KIDMAN RECREATE A SURF FILM CLASSIC?

W E A L L H AV E A S T O RY T O T E L L .

THE RIVER OF NO RETURN W E S T E R LY W I N D I N A I S N O W O F F I C I A L LY A W O M A N .

INTERVIEW BY LUKE KENNEDY

“I THINK THAT MAN DID SO MUCH FOR SURFING. HE VIRTUALLY CREATED THE WHOLE SURFING INDUSTRY AS WE KNOW IT ONWARDS FROM 1977. HE CREATED THE VITAL CONNECTION OF COMPETITION TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND THE ‘SURF-STAR’ CONCEPT THAT WOULD IDENTIFY WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC.”

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ix years ago Peter Drouyn, the decorated competition surfer, surf industry revolutionary, actor, lawyer and wave stadium innovator was up late watching television when he had a sudden and dramatic epiphany. According to Westerly (Peter’s current incarnation) in “one atomic instant” he was unequivocally changed into a female. Minutes after the life-altering event Peter found himself dancing on a nearby beach in his underwear, his thoughts, actions and beliefs already under the influence of his new identity – Westerly Windina.

The overnight transformation proved to be anything but a passing phase and Westerly began to dress and behave as any woman would. Intriguingly Westerly made one of her first public appearances at the 30-year reunion for the 1977 Stubbies. The original Stubbies had been a watershed moment in professional surfing and Drouyn was the flamboyant creator who silenced the doubters and pulled the whole thing off with a Merlin-like quality.

At the Stubbies he not only launched the man-on-man competition criteria but pioneered the professional, super-star driven format that surf contests follow today.

At the blokey-themed Stubbies reunion, which was held at a beachside, Burleigh restaurant, Westerly strutted to the stage mid-way through a phase she likes to describe as an “evolving chameleon”. Clad in semi-heels, an orange stretch (fifties’) long sleeve top, earrings and tight blue jeans, she made quite an impression. Almost all the original Stubbies competitors were present and for Peter’s contemporaries, like Mark Warren, Mark Richards, Cheyne Horan as well as surprise attendee Kelly Slater, the reincarnation of Peter as Westerly seemed almost unbelievable. While there had always been an eccentric dimension to Peter, he had also enjoyed a reputation as a ladies man, dogged competitor and handy fighter.

As Westerly persisted without, she claims, “any control over her transgender metamorphosis” people began to take her pledge to become a woman more seriously. American journalist Jamie Brisick wrote a story for the USA’s iconic publication The Surfers Journal (which later appeared in Tracks) documenting Westerly’s embryonic, feminine evolution. At the time the story first appeared in Tracks, Westerly was yet to undergo the gender augmentation surgery that would make it indisputably clear that Peter had ridden his last wave as a male. Some still doubted Westerly’s conviction, suggesting it was another of Peter Drouyn’s (he had trained as an actor at the renowned NIDA institution in Sydney) elaborate attention-grabbing per-

formances. All that changed last December when, after scrupulous evaluation by psychological experts, Westerly travelled to Bangkok for the painful six-hour surgery. To borrow a title from one of Westerly’s favourite Marilyn Monroe movies she had finally reached “The River of No Return”.

It’s early March and after much to and fro by phone, Westerly agrees to meet with myself and photographer, Nathan Smith, at her home in Labrador on the northern side of the Gold Coast. We arrive late on a Sunday afternoon, finally stopping outside an inauspicious, housing commission semi, in a suburban backwater that matches the address we’ve been given.

Just 18 kilometres south, the Quiksilver Pro is in full cry at Snapper Rocks with surfers on multi-million dollar contracts, vying for prominent winner’s cheques in a contest that, apart from a couple of inconspicuous cosmetic changes, follows the same man-on-man format that Peter Drouyn pioneered back in 1977. As we make our way to Westerly’s front door there is certainly no indication that pro surfing royalty cheques are arriving in the mail. Just around the corner from where we are, lives Peter’s 23-year-old son Zachary.

Although relations with Zachary’s mother, Stephanie, are strained, Westerly apparently enjoys a good relationship with 23-year-old Zac and suggests that he is always foremost in her thoughts.

We pass a browning but waxed surfboard and when we knock on the door we are promptly greeted by Westerly, who it must be said looks distinctly feminine and much younger than her 63 years. She leads us in through a humble two-room place. The kitchen bench is strewn with jewellery, cosmetics, sea shells, smoothed rocks and a multitude of nick-knacks, while an electronic keyboard takes pride of place in the lounge room. She suggests she prefers to sleep on the couch. The main bedroom features a mirrored picture of Marilyn Monroe and a wardrobe full of sparkling burlesque sequinned costumes, glamorous tight-fitting outfits and a shoe collection that would have a catwalk model purring. Westerly tells us that they have all been collected from Lifeline, Vinnies and the Salvos in the early years of her feminine evolution.

Although the gender operation has left her voice with a temporary raspiness, she is happy to talk at length about her journey to become Westerly Windina. Below, with compelling honesty she details how she has been received by the surfing world, why Peter’s legacy is still very important; her hopes for finding future love, the mysterious connection she has to Marilyn Monroe and the supernatural world and finally the stage and big screen projects that will let her tell her story to the world.

WESTERLY WINDINA SEARCHING FOR THE WOMAN IN THE MIRROR. NATESMITHPHOTO.COM

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Can you tell us about the operation? I had my reassignment operation on the 11th of December 2012. Then I was two weeks in Yanhee Hospital in Bangkok. It was hell; it was excruciatingly painful post operation. It was a very long operation and it affected every part of my body resulting in something like a tensile steel Mummy. I was a living vault. So, it’s taken a while to turn elastic and loosen up so to speak. My voice is the last casualty to recover.

Tell us a little more about the moment when you felt convinced that you wanted to be a woman. When I had the sudden change to female I immediately became euphoric. It happened so suddenly; it wasn’t a slow process or anything like it. It was on the stroke of midnight – bang! I was female.

It was the weirdest thing, totally unexplainable; I had stayed up late, I was listening to my music and watching a film; it was a music DVD including a film of an albatross flying around a sub-Antarctica island.

Anyway that was what Peter was doing just before the clock struck 12, I can assure you it was right on midnight. Straight after that I got into my car and went down to the beach and started dancing in frantic circles and lines leaping in high stretch steps, a la’ a display of wild female creative dance motions. Mind you, I was very discreet, as I didn’t want anyone to see me, as this miracle seemed so bizarre, but I wanted to feel whatever this revelation was and take it to wherever it was going to hang onto this incredible sensation.

Peter was tortured most of his life. Anything that stopped the torture, the confusion and the fear was welcomed with open arms. Immediately I became Westerly I didn’t have Peter’s personality anymore. I had part of Peter’s personality, which I believe was his memory, but I was a totally different person in terms of who and what I was, my imaginings, my decision making, my thought processes, especially emotional processes. Everything became in one instant so starkly different.

However, it’s taken you six years to get to the point where you were able to undergo the surgery? It seemed like at some stage I needed a miracle to have the operation because I was in total poverty, living in this housing commission place – just no money … believe me; you know it just looked like nothing was going to happen and I started to become frustrated. Then there was some publicity in Tracks magazine and in the Sydney Sun Herald and on the Manly Surf Series, which finally wakened the offshore interest of some American producers.

So how did you arrive at the name Westerly? Some years ago – long before the epiphany – I’d thought that if I were a girl what would my name be? And I decided it would have to be Westerly because Peter just loved the west wind. It’s something that drove the cobwebs out of his system. It made the waves and the sky more beautiful and he and others around him on the beach in winter just seemed to be more relaxed when that wind blew.

The westerly always seemed to do something to the northern end of the Gold Coast. Peter did all his board training in the west wind and beside his dog and his board, the westerly was his trinity of best friends. And right up to his big win as a 100 to 1 shot dark horse in the Australian Junior Titles at Manly in 1965.

It seems that Westerly hasn’t divorced herself from the memory of Peter or tried to push him away. Instead it seems that Westerly looks fondly on the memory of Peter? You said that right. You see, there has to be a sympathy for Peter from the truly sincere feminine point of view, from the mothering point of view. There has to be tears because he just suffered so much: he suffered in a terrible disciplined silence. No one ever knew. He suppressed it by any means possible. And in the end he attempted to rid himself of the curse with his own version of “method surfing” (as opposed to “method acting”) – you know, he developed his own brand of ballistic calisthenics mixed with Wushu “animal” inspired martial arts. He wasn’t a A YOUNG PETER DROUYN WITH HIS FATHER VICTOR ON THE LEFT. RUSTY MILLER

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drug person: he just wanted to be normal. When he finally went and spent two weeks in a private psychiatric ward at the age of 24 in Sydney without anyone knowing, the doctor put him on powerful anti-depressants. But Sydney was a strange place to him – too claustrophobic, too rigid and no real answers: he became worse alongside the “walking dead”. Then one night when he’d had enough and seemed insanity wasn’t too far away, he opened the window of his musky room and just like a bird, he flew out that window with his clothes and his bag cradled tight under both arms: got to his car, nervously but frantically turned the keys and went back to the Surfers Paradise to his worried family.

When he returned to the coast his mother asked his father to take him to a psychiatrist who was a very quirky and very different specialist – someone that Peter really needed – a kind of “Merlin”. He didn’t want that stiff upper lip type – the kind who would take it just from the book and prescribe blindly. This fellow would slouch back in his high leather chair and just stare at Peter; he seemed to stare at him for what seemed like hours and finally after several sessions (with his dad waiting outside) he finally nodded his head and said, ‘I think I know what’s wrong and where we should go from here. I want you to take these new pills I have got and throw the others away. What you have my boy is a very severe case of this new phenomenon called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and you’ve had it since an incident, which happened when you were a child. We’re going to try and control this disorder and not let it control you.

Within six months Peter started to control the demon thoughts and he could stay just one step in front of the demons and he was so happy to find out what became just part of the total solution. That was the start of the revival of Peter Drouyn in 1975. He didn’t know anything but surfing contests (all else had failed) and he went back to the sea and started competition again with his first close result to Michael Peterson. A couple of years later of course he created the Stubbies Surf Classic – the great revolution of Surfing and competition format and the new age of professionalism began.

You say there has to be sympathy for Peter but are you also proud of some of the things that he accomplished? I think that man did so much for surfing. He virtually created the whole surfing industry as we know it onwards from 1977. He created the vital connection of competition to the general public and the ‘surf-star’ concept that would identify with the general public.

Sponsors and the surf manufacturing companies could likewise, make the same identification by having a star on their team and the “man-on-man” format was the perfect platform to identify a star’s particular surfing prowess against just one other person – similar to tennis. The Pro-Tour’s now armed with the perfect competition system which has entrenched the sport with a beacon of certainty that all could follow and a massive industry began to grow around it.

Michael Peterson won that very first man-on-man event at the Stubbies.

Given that your histories are so linked, was there a sadness for you when you heard that Michael had passed away? It was sad. It’s almost like war when two people who are suffering in their own world and are facing every day like it’s a battle just getting through the day by any means and sometimes using whatever means are available – whether it’s drugs or calisthenics or meditation and deep breathing. Peter really saw Michael as a victim of the people around him and Peter saw himself as a loner who shouldn’t be. When Michael died I really felt sad for him because he was a comrade, a talented and intelligent one – a determined comrade of Peter’s yet without any obvious understanding of their complicated natures.

The ’77 Stubbies was a perfect parallel in differing powerful psychological dramas.

But now – I have to survive: left with Peter’s legacy – I’m not going to die.

I’m going to live this life with a new mission and make things right. It was a war of attrition.

Now I want to reach up as high as that albatross and express myself in

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WESTERLY WINDINA IS EVERY BIT AS ENGAGING AND ENTERTAINING AS PETER DROUYN EVER WAS. NATESMITHPHOTO.COM

this new female form and engage the public with a totally new style of performing arts involving song, dance, comedy and original music scores.

I’ve written a novel in my early years as a woman, something that just came naturally as did the keyboard and my movie theme style composition called “The Albatross”.

How supportive has the surfing fraternity been of your decision? I think they’ve been really good overall. Obviously there are a lot of guys out there who are a bit sad overall that Peter may have gone prematurely but they lived in Peter’s heyday and heydays can’t last forever, nothing does. Perhaps it was ideal that Peter went at the top of his game and they will never see him corrode.

What about the likes of Rabbit and Peter Townend; have they expressed support or interest in your situation? Well, PT actually drove myself and my friend Mal Charmers to the airport after the Surfing Australia awards night, so we had a bit of a chat and took a couple of photographs… They’re very conservative in reality most of those guys, even though they make out otherwise. They do have a little bit of a problem in terms of transferring one image that they’re so used to, to another – they’re not sure if this person is the same as the other. It’s a bit strange for them. I can understand that.

Given they were contemporaries of Peter, they would have a very well defined memory of who he was, so making that shift could be difficult?

Oh God yes! This is like an airplane compared to a ship. I don’t think many of them have been able to handle the bizarre difference between Peter and Westerly – two different genders and totally different looking people. Well, given that kind of stark extremity, again it’s very difficult and also quite bizarre for me too. Yet I love who and what I am and what I’m now capable of achieving. It’s funny; of course Nat Young was one you’d always expect to handle it. Does anything dissuade Nat? At the surfing awards Nat came up and a lot of those first generation surf stars came up to me at the Surfing

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awards – even Joel Parkinson came up for a photo, big hug and frantic chat.

And of course Stephanie Gilmore was so lovely to me. At those awards I literally had hordes of people coming up. I was very happy and very surprised; that it seemed my presence at the event was making people happy and comfortable with themselves I think too. If that coincided with a man called Peter then that night went a long way to indirectly show homage to the man.

I had a lot of fun and met a lot of new friends The women especially could easily distinguish me as being one and the same with them.

When your voice does improve can we expect to see you making your presence felt more prominently in the public sphere? When that happens we are going to have a real Westerly ‘Showcase Finale’ to the movie I’m currently involved in (Jamie Brisick is currently coordinating a documentary about Westerly’s life story, titled Westerly). We are going to have a professional live show on stage, under spotlight with a pianist and classical guitarist. The American producers have backed me to create a variety show with songs, comedy sketches, dancing and possibly introduce guests in later shows – people who are on the cusp and finding it hard to break into show business. The producers are going to make it a truly grand night with a live audience. I’m thrilled to be writing the shows’ program and so looking forward to being involved in a new, musical revolutionary event. I’ve been frenetically practicing my songs and modifying originals. And developing new “branches” to my composition on the keyboard… Later I’ll play “The Albatross” for you.

What is the significance of the Albatross? Peter can remember surfing at Uluwatu on a wave and a Wandering Albatross (species name) was right there alongside him and suddenly it was like they were imitating each other’s natural movements as they sped down the line of a rather big wave. The Albatross now looks to be a great bird that’s somehow inextricably linked to my rebirth. There’s talk the Wandering Albatross and its connection to me may be used in a future, major Hollywood film. There is talk of adapting my

IN 1984 DROUYN ATTEMPTED TO LAUNCH ANOTHER BOLD SURF CONTEST CONCEPT CALLED THE SUPER CHALLENGE. THE IDEA WAS FOR HE AND MARK RICHARDS TO SURF A SERIES OF HEATS ON EVERY KIND OF BOARD MADE SINCE THE ’60S – TWIN FIN, QUAD FIN, SINGLE FIN, LONG-BOARD AND THRUSTER – TO DETERMINE WHO WAS THE BEST ALL-ROUND SURFER IN THE WORLD. A VERY DEBONAIR DROUYN IS PICTURED HERE WITH HIS SMOKING JACKET AND SUPER CHALLENGE QUIVER. ALTHOUGH THE EVENT CAME TO AN INGLORIOUS AND PREMATURE END WHEN A MAJOR STORM AND A BIG SHARK INTERRUPTED PROCEEDINGS, DROUYN ONCE AGAIN PROVED TO BE AHEAD OF HIS TIME BY MAKING USE OF A COMPUTERIZED SCORING SYSTEM. TULLEMANS

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story to the film. My producers have had enthusiastic talks with prominent producers and directors.

So you don’t have a problem divorcing the two identities in your mind now? No, as a matter of fact I’m a little girl still fledgling in growth and understanding of myself. In my mind there’s a man’s memory to essentially steer me away from harm: an educated man with huge life experience, but for now I’ve a little girl’s memory developing rapidly; a mind and memory developing, pushing Peter’s memory back in time. I’m developing my own sense of hurt and pain, mainly concerned with the memory of Peter. I don’t want to think about it. So what Westerly wants is the demarcation of one memory and a new one, retaining all the beautiful things concerned with Peter such as my son Zac and the sea and nature and the outer worlds connected to this one. Peter’s story is the story of a person inflicted with pain and confusion yet able to achieve incredible things the world had never seen and will never see again. That’s his Epitaph. That’s his remarkable contribution to this planet’s humanity. Mine is yet to come and will be welcomed as something the world needs now in the form of a new revolutionary entertainment event called “The Westerly Windina Show” which will be showcased in the film I’m currently involved in.

One of the by-products of Peter’s natural charisma was that he had quite the reputation for being a ladies man. There is no doubt about that. As I have said, that rather than drugs or becoming an alcoholic, Peter used the ladies – perhaps unfortunately and of course unknowingly – to help him out of his anxiety and inner discontent. Because they always mothered him and he needed female companionship. He understood women, which might explain a few things about his gender disphoria deep within. His mum was his best friend. Peter was a super handsome young man. The girls swooned every time he walked in and the guys hated him. Poor old Peter was suffering nerves, yet he’d walk into a room all dapper and handsome and wonder ‘how are they going to treat me tonight?’ And of course the girls would all come over and the guys would depart into the corner, with Peter wondering who was going to “shoot it out”, so to speak. Peter would then go and beat them in the competitions. Well what a disaster in the making! With the girls at least he had, dare I say, a normal life and rather intermittent sex life.

None of those girls could ever stick because the tragic irony was that deep inside he was a girl himself. Of course again, Peter didn’t know that. There was no effeminate stuff from him and he wasn’t too fond of homosexuals and things like that. Although he did get along with anybody who was nice to him. There were some homosexuals at NIDA [Peter attended the National Institute of Dramatic Arts] and they were okay so long as they didn’t come too close.

Peter didn’t have homosexual tendencies but does Westerly have hopes for finding romance in the future? Oh absolutely, now everything is in its right place, its right order. Westerly is a female and now she has a natural attraction and feelings for a gentlemen, just like any decent woman.

Westerly is very reserved though: she has a “one man” goal if possible.

When she sees other beautiful girls she has no interest whatsoever except kinship and basic gender friendship. She can get along so much better with girls now because relative to her knowing what and who she is: she knows things like what girls prefer to discuss and what causes their irritations or enthusiasm.

Do you therefore find it more liberating or easier to be amongst company that only knows you as Westerley and didn’t know you as Peter?

[At this point the interview takes a marked change in direction when Westerly begins to talk about her links to the paranormal world, UFOs and Marilyn Monroe.]

Absolutely. Just being known as Westerly, it sort of stamps the principle that now I’m a female and Peter is past tense and I’ve got a mission in life that I want to accomplish … I’ve got things to do – I’m a girl in a hurry. Although I’ve got to be patient and remember a couple of promises to myself.

I’m going to say this Luke and please understand I say it with a sane belief based on fact – not fiction; there’s a part of me that seems to be para-

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normal. Sometimes I’m not completely certain I’m totally human. I mean Peter was confronted by a UFO back in ‘69 – less than 12 feet away from him. It scared the living daylights out of him for the first few minutes until he realised they weren’t going to hurt him. Then he ran home and woke the house up and just screamed and ranted to his brother and mother (his dad was out to it in another room). But no sooner had it happened that it was totally suppressed – I guess because Peter had enough fears and troubles and had to win big surf championships. Or perhaps the unknown force suppressed it for him and family.

But now things from the past begin to close in again and make some sense and I have conditionally linked that factual happening to my rebirth as a woman. Then there’s a recent incident involving my camera shutter going off on its own. Shooting amazing likenesses of Marilyn Monroe and Peter at very young and same ages. This was no séance. I was just beginning a random comparison (I’d shot hundreds of photos before including some of Marilyn’s ever growing connection to me and Peter. I was very frustrated at the time and ready to disbelieve the whole shamozzle! I was in prayer wanting a sign from the Universal Divine. The camera started answering questions directed to Marilyn’s pictures from a book). And by way of double clicks for ‘yes’ and zero for ‘no’ I had a 10-minute conversation with Marilyn or whomever represented her. I was in a state of ecstasy – beside myself – a sign finally that I am not mistaken. Yes it proved I am part of someone or something else besides transited from Peter but I have no answers on how or even why yet. Perhaps that UFO had something to do with it. Maybe they programmed Peter for something in the future a link to what is happening now and what might happen. Something that might mean a lot to a lot of people.

Tell us more about your connection to Marilyn Monroe. This connection between Marilyn and Peter has become a vital cog in the unfolding evolution of Westerly. Marilyn has arrived; Westerly is out of “prison”. She’s passed through Peter and Westerly who does not have any of the panic attacks or problems associated with Peter or Marilyn. Westerly can talk the house down. She can stand in front of a million people and change them in an instant with her performance which by the way is meant to make people of all ages happier and more confident and more hopeful in themselves.

This is why I keep saying that I’m not Peter – the closest thing I could say is that I’m his twin sister with Marilyn orchestrating her unfinished dreams through me.

Do you think people might have difficulty believing your claims about paranormal connections? Well, I did law; I was lawyer though briefly before my changed persona and form occurred. From there everything went pear shaped. My dad died and I became homeless. My world collapsed under me. I went into the wilderness on the coast outside Grafton alone and in poverty. Just my car to lock myself in at night and pray for morning to come.

Marilyn was in dire straights: at one time she had only her car and received help from strangers in pre-war Los Angeles. Luke I need absolute proof since I did law – law has helped me to rationalise factually – it’s taught me not to believe anything unless you have absolute proof. I finally got the proof I desperately needed. Now I know something is going on and I do think now I’m already being groomed since some years ago for something big, something very important for so many different people.

So you feel that your claims are in some way legitimised by the fact that you have subjected them to the kind of intense scrutiny a lawyer might?

Yes, and I think that this was part of the road map set down for me. She (Marilyn Monroe) never had much education: she wanted to be a lawyer, be well educated to be able to rationalise her troubles through … I think that this thing was set down to me so that I would be super critical and analyse all the elements before I’d entertain any notion that I was someone resurrected or paranormal or the like.

The Americans said, “Westerly, we are taking this whole mystery on – it’s okay – we’ve got the money and you can have completion first with your

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: PETER DROUYN ALWAYS HAD A REPUTATION FOR BEING SOMETHING OF A LADIES MAN. TULLEMANS RABBIT AND PETER WERE ONCE CONTEMPORARIES AND FIERCE COMPETITORS. WITZIG WESTERLY RECEIVING THE AWARD WHEN PETER WAS VOTED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SURFERS IN AUSTRALIAN SURFING HISTORY AT THE SURFING AUSTRALIA AWARDS. JOLI THERE WAS A DRAMATIC QUALITY TO EVERYTHING PETER DID – CAPTURED HERE LAYING DOWN A RAIL WITH STYLE.

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WESTERLY HAS EMBRACED EVERY FACET OF BEING A WOMAN AND DEFINITELY HOLDS HOPES OF FINDING ROMANCE IN THE FUTURE. NATESMITHPHOTO.COM

much sought-after operation’. That was the first miracle. My voice has taken a long time to recover and I lose faith occasionally, but the upshot is that this is surely a final signature vocal tone: the one that will be used for the “Showcase Finale” to the film.

So do you still feel a very close connection to Marilyn Monroe? It’s not Marilyn who’s been resurrected – no – what I think is, it’s Westerly – she’s been resurrected through Peter from Marilyn. It’s totally weird and I can understand people being startled but now I have proof – yes Marilyn sits on the sideline – she’s hoping for her return to the stage through Westerly and her redemption from tragedy through the mirror image and historical similarities of Peter: then the transfer of her spirit through Peter into Westerly.

She’s wanting to fulfil her final dream just like Peter and just like Westerly.

The plan to achieve that is only understood if you believe there are forces in the outer worlds with life and spirit forms that have the power to create a discreet plan of such bizarre proportions to provide a magnified impact on us.

So if I can simply put it this way, it’s as if Peter and Marilyn are kindred spirits who have not had the opportunity to fulfil their destiny and they are doing so through Westerly? That’s basically it: if there’s truth it broadly makes sense within a metaphysical frame. It’s partly about Marilyn’s “Waterloo”– it just came too early. I’m not saying she hung out in multi dimension corridors as a derailed spirit with an agenda; I’m suggesting she can only speak from a “Heavenly” point of view and I believe only a Divine Force could promote such a masterful plan. It’s not so much the redemption of Marilyn or Peter but Westerly’s Mission to achieve what both of them combined could not. No anti force will ever be able to stop Westerly finishing the Mission with her Message to all.

A devil’s advocate might be compelled to ask you if the invention of Westerly Windina was not just an elaborate attention-grabbing scam,

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particularly given Peter’s love of creating drama? Yes, well you see, I would call that a populist notion, viewpoint or attitude. It’s also another persuasion called “tall poppy syndrome” and there’s not much intellectual analysis behind that partisan approach. Before they make comment they should research and experience everything I’ve been through and then use that to make an informed decision. Westerly has never really promoted this as a “spin” or a piece of Broadway theatre. I guess the ultimate Houdini act would be for Peter to suddenly show up again. That’s what they want but that’s not going to happen. It’s the same as the Stubbies event: when they said ‘that’s never going to work’. And what happened?’ It’s a similar paradigm. The first phrase that these people are going to use is ‘that won’t work’, or ‘that’s bull’, both statements made in a couple of seconds. People usually have preset agendas while some have cemented phobias about any change in attitude.

Does Westerly still surf? Oh look with winter coming I just hope that we will get some. Westerly’s and my little spot will have a nice gutter. I have no need or desire whatsoever to do anything else but appreciate the beautiful sea and all the healing and pleasure it possesses for us. If the odd passerby feels like offering a little hand clap that’s fine and appreciated. But for me it’s the stage where public acceptance measures my destiny.

At the conclusion of our interview Westerly insists on playing her composition “The Albatross”. As she pauses with her fingers hovering over the keys and focuses, I have to admit I’m skeptical. However, true to form, Westerly is full of surprises and holds us spellbound for several minutes with the moving piece.

“Westerly Windina requires the services of a professional manager for her upcoming stage show and film engagements in Australia and the USA”.

All genuine respondents are kindly asked to direct their enquiries to westerlyw.manager@yahoo.com.au