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I think about this story all the time, but I don't think I've ever spoken about it on here. So here's a thread about my closest, saddest and most life-changing brush with Australian fame.
When I was in about year 9 or 10, Michael Chamberlain, the father of Azaria Chamberlain (the baby killed by a dingo in the 80s), started working at my high school and became my English teacher.
He was *lovely*. A really gentle, quiet and patient man who was incredibly passionate about teaching and the content he was sharing with us.
I remember a day where he was absolutely thrilled to find out I was going to buy my own copy of The Great Dictator and insisted on giving me the money to pay for it.
I was an absolute shit who had no understanding of privacy or grief at this stage, so it only took me a few weeks to ask him about his daughter's death
One of the greatest criticisms of the Chamberlains at the time of their daughters death was their lack of emotion. No one believed that they cared enough.
But over 20 years after she had died, Mr Chamberlain was still shaking when he told me what the ordeal was like from his point of view.
He told me that at the time, the cause of death on Azaria's death certificate was still listed as unknown -- and the next stage of getting justice for his daughter was making sure that was changed.
After getting through decades of gruelling, public law suits he was staring in the face of even more with energy and conviction and I thought he was just wonderful.
Other people in my school didn't feel the same way though. Once of the worst things I've ever seen is Mr Chamberlain asking one of my classmates for their homework and he responding "A dingo ate it"
One day Mr Chamberlain asked me to stay after class. He shut the door and burst into tears.
He told me some of the other teachers had filed complaints about him and the school was considering terminating him. He wasn't sure why, but he thought it was because they believed he'd had a role in the death of his daughter.
I can't make it any more clear that from a student's perspective he was a really good teacher -- I couldn't understand why people would be trying to get rid of him either
He asked me if I would write a letter to the school asking them to reconsider, and give my perspective on what he was like as a teacher.
I have never in my life worked harder on a piece of writing. I sat down with my parents and my history teacher and my year advisor and tried to write a defence of this man
I gave the letter to Mr Chamberlain, and then went away for term break. He was no longer employed at my school by the time I came back a few weeks later.
I managed to hunt down an email for him after he left, and reached out to say how sorry I was but I never heard back.
I kept an eye out for news of him over the years. I was thrilled to see he won his case to have Azaria's death certificate changed. I was equally devastated to hear he died last year.
And I think of him every time someone makes a joke about a dingo eating their baby, never stopping to think about the man and woman who lost a daughter in front of the world's eyes
He was so good and the world was so awful to him. He deserved better.
Also this doesn't even touch on how awful the treatment of Lindy Chamberlain was -- because I never met her and have no authority to speak on it -- but that woman should never ever have gone to jail
Also it just goes to show how isolated he must have been that the only person he could turn to for support in his workplace was a 16 year old girl
