Love, Sweat and Tears: One woman's incredible journey through grief, fear and loss to a lifelong dream of working with animals

Zelie Bullen (formerly Zelie Thompson) has worked as an animal trainer and stuntwoman in film and television for over twenty years. She has been lucky enough to work with and train a large range of both exotic and domestic animals from lions, elephants and giraffes to pigs, donkeys, dogs and horses.

Zelie grew up on the outskirts of Perth, Western Australia, and was surrounded by animals from a very young age. Throughout her school years, she collected as many animals as her mother would allow, and unwittingly began learning about their communication and hierarchy systems just by being with them whenever time permitted. Her daily life today is her childhood dream come true, working and living with animals she loves and being paid for it.

Zelie lives on the Gold Coast with her husband, son and various animals. She has particularly enjoyed writing her story with her sister Freda.

Freda Marnie Nicholls began her writing career with a letter to the editor of a dirt bike magazine, complaining about the fact that she was being left to bring up three little children while her husband was off riding his bike. This tongue-in-cheek letter led to a monthly column and gave her the courage to pursue her dream of writing.

Freda has written for various national magazines and newspapers, even working as editor for a regional paper for a short time, before common sense prevailed and she realised it was more fun helping her husband on the farm and writing on a freelance basis. She has written articles for Style magazine, The Land, Canberra Times and various publications of RM Williams Outback Publishing and regional newspapers, writing mostly about rural people and their lives.

Freda lives on a farm in southern New South Wales with her husband and their three great teenage children.

ZELIE BULLEN

WITH FREDA MARNIE NICHOLLS

First published in 2013

Copyright © Zelie Bullen and Freda Marnie Nicholls 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone:     (61 2) 8425 0100

Email:     [email protected]

Web:       www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from

the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74331 1 516

EISBN 978 174269 877 9

Internal design by Darian Causby, Highway51

Set in 12/18 pt Sabon by Midland Typesetters, Australia

I dedicate this book to my devoted mum,

who taught me how to love.

ZELIE

For Bert and our beautiful children Hayley,

Charlotte and Sam. You are my world.

FREDA

‘I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go

ahead and be one.’

CALAMITY JANE

Contents

1    What you see is what you get

2    Beautiful friends

3    Fancy Pants

4    Love and loss

5    Snoopy Two

6    Julie

7    Dad

8    Taking risks

9    Angel’s Halo

10    Ocean Girl

11    Grahame

12    Killing myself

13    In Pursuit of Honor

14    Jean

15    Sled

16    Movie stars and happiness

17    Connie

18    A place of my own

19    Bullen Bros

20    The Olympics

21    Arjuna and Aura

22    Raising big cats

23    Running away

24    Working for royalty

25    In the forests of Ermenonville

26    Mario

27    Journey to Switzerland

28    Ridicule and recognition

29    Family

30    Stafford

31    Of course you can stay

32    Ned Kelly

33    Travelling with elephants

34    Education and welfare

35    The Man from Snowy River

36    Jim and Silvana

37    Racing Stripes

38    Fort Worth and Las Vegas

39    Wonkey

40    Antonio, Mexico’s hero

41    Zorro in action

42    Moriarty to the rescue

43    Tita and Flaca

44    Bittersweet

45    Elephant Tales

46    A night wedding, is it?

47    Colt, with no regrets

48    Times a-changing

49    Running away with the circus

50    Grace

51    My toes are facing the wrong way!

52    Five per cent

53    Working for Spielberg

54    Politics and war

55    War horses

56    Recipe for success

57    Grand circus tour

58    Safe

Epilogue

Zelie’s acknowledgements

Freda’s acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1

What you see is what you get

What you see is what you get. I always liked that about animals—the simplicity, the straightforwardness. When I was young, animals were easier to understand than adults, or even other kids.

I used to ride my little grey pony bareback to Beenong, which the state school kids liked to call ‘that loser hippy school’. As I pushed Candy into a trot, they would line up and hurl abuse at us through their chainmail school fence, calling me a ‘Beenong bastard’ as I bounced off down the road away from them.

Arriving at my school, I would tether Candy out to graze. I’d pull out the bucket I kept stashed under the school foundations, fill it with water and place it beside her. Then I’d give her a quick pat and tell her I’d be back soon.

Schooling at Beenong was far from conventional. It was an independent alternative to the state school system, run predominantly by the community. We had qualified teachers, but we addressed them by their first names and everything was very casual. Lessons weren’t as structured as at other schools. Contrary to what the state school kids used to taunt me with, we weren’t taught to smash windows, but it wasn’t uncommon for a maths class to finish early so we could go and climb trees, or for English to be interrupted so we could learn how to make cumquat jam, just because someone’s cumquat tree had an oversupply of fruit. To me it was a mixture of standard schooling and real-life skills.

At the time, my family lived in the village of Darlington in the Darling Ranges, the escarpment that rises sharply to the east of Perth. Surrounded by dry spiky bushland, where we had lots of adventures, it was a great place to grow up.

Materially we didn’t have much, but I didn’t really dwell on that—in any case, it was all I knew. Dad had left when I was eight months old, leaving Mum with three little girls to bring up by herself. When he left, my oldest sister, Freda, was five, and Julie was two.

The first memory I have of our father was when I was about five years old. There was a knock at the door. Freda got there first; as she swung it open, I popped under her arm to see who it was. She called out, ‘Dad!’ and I thought, ‘Who?’ I had no idea who this man was. Feeling a combination of embarrassment and fear, I watched her hug him. He was a stranger—why was she being so familiar with him? If Dad had ever visited us before then, I don’t remember.

Life when I was growing up was often insecure and uncertain. Mum had been left in a hideous situation, with very little support from my father, and I think she did an amazing job raising us. Even though she did her best, money was often tight and sometimes we found ourselves in bad situations. I know what it’s like to be scared—and I mean really scared. Scared for my own safety and for that of my sisters; but, most of all, terrified for my mother. We watched as she struggled through several violent relationships, including an attempted drowning at the hands of one particularly nasty partner, and various beatings. I also know what it’s like to be hungry, to truly crave a complete meal and a full pantry. And I know what it’s like to be hopeful—hopeful that tomorrow will be easier.

These early memories were my first lessons in feeling gratitude and appreciation for what I have; as a result, as awful as some of these experiences were at the time, I’m grateful for them. I will always feel compassion and admiration for my mum, and honour her for what she lived through—the shame, the embarrassment, the bad decisions, but also her survival instincts, her sheer determination and the way she always strove to do her best for us three kids.

Mum had been born in Malaysia, from Australian and English parents. Her father was a successful exporter of tin and rubber to the ever-expanding British Empire, and ended up serving three years in Changi prison after fighting the Japanese in World War II. Grandma, together with Mum as a nine-month-old baby and my three-year old uncle, escaped on one of the last boats to leave Singapore harbour before it fell to the Japanese. They eventually made their way back to Grandma’s family in Darlington.

After the war, Grandma and Grandpa were reunited and they went back to Malaysia to start their lives again. They sent Mum to boarding school in Western Australia for her secondary education, and then finishing school in Switzerland, before she came back to Australia to study art. It was then that she met and married a tall dark handsome man who swept her off her feet, my father. When Dad left and for many years after, my grandparents were still living and working in Malaysia, and Mum felt ashamed being a divorcee, and was too proud to ask for help.

But no matter what was happening in our lives at any particular moment, I always felt deeply loved and immensely important. I was raised thinking I was better looking than I actually was, smarter than I was, a better singer than I was—the list goes on. I may have been shy, but I wasn’t lacking in confidence. Despite all the distressing emotions my mum must have been experiencing herself, she clearly did a great job in providing me with self-worth.

Like most mothers, she did some things wrong, but she did an awful lot of things right too. Perhaps the most important thing she taught me was how to communicate, how to express myself, how to love and how to be loved.

Another great gift she bestowed upon me was a love of animals. I grew up with an assortment of chooks and an aviary full of birds, plus two cats, called Easter and Christmas (because that was when they first decided to arrive at our house). And of course we always had dogs. Whatever was happening in my life, animals were always there for me.

The first animal I thought of as actually belonging to me was one I found when I was six. I thought I was the luckiest little girl in the world when I found some puppies just after they were born, hidden among some rocks and long grass behind a friend’s house. I felt even luckier when Mum let me bring one of them home six weeks later when they were old enough to be weaned. I called him Snoopy, after the character in the Peanuts comics. He was a funny little kelpie–corgi cross with an adorable, gentle personality, and he became an incredibly important member of our family for the next twelve years.

My introduction to the wonderful world of horses came later, through one of my sister Julie’s school friends, who had an old white mare called Princess. When we visited, someone would catch her for us and we would climb all over her, jumping on and off, standing on her back. I became obsessed with her. She was a kind, patient playmate. Animals were my friends.

In early 1977, when I was just six, we moved from Darlington, to the Porongurups, a mountain range four hours south of Perth. Here a community had sprung up on Harriet Lemann’s family farm. Mum and twenty-one-year-old Harriet had met at a party, and they soon became firm friends. Harriet was one of six children and it was her parents who owned the hobby farm in the Porongurups that turned into our home. Mum felt that there she could give us a more relaxed country lifestyle, which was what she had always wanted too. There was a big old concrete-brick homestead, a wooden apple-packing shed and an old dairy Harriet had converted into makeshift homes, which filled with different people at different times, including our little family. She and Mum grew an enormous veggie patch between the house and the old dairy to feed everyone.

The founder of Beenong School, Lance Holt, started an alternative school on the property. There were four or five kids living on the farm at any one time, and together with a handful of local kids whose parents wanted to try out the school for their sometimes troublesome children, became the pupils of ‘Freewheels’. Lance called it ‘Freewheels’ in reference to the two buses on the property. One, a stationary blue bus, was used purely as a classroom, and the other was an old yellow double-decker that served as both occasional sleeping quarters and a means of transport to parties and excursions around the district, complete with a piano, which Harriet would play as we drove along.

Our community was very easygoing and laid-back, though there was little or no routine and life could be chaotic. But for a kid it was a whole lot of fun. Between our intermittent schooling, we’d explore the old wooden farm buildings and abandoned overgrown piles of wood and rusty steel that lay around the place, or just go out and experience the beauty of nature. If it was hot we went nicky swimming in the dam. There was a great community feel and there were always lots of fun things to do.

A local farming couple, Ruth and John Bush, sent their youngest son Robert to Freewheels for his schooling. Robert and I were great friends, and I used to go and stay with them on weekends and work on the farm, following Ruth around and doing whatever she did. I couldn’t get enough of it—in fact, I remember wanting to stay there forever. People would say to me, ‘So, you’re going to marry a farmer,’ and I would reply, ‘No, I’m going to be a farmer.’ Even then I knew that was what I wanted to do—to be with animals and work outside.

John Bush is a talented musician and music teacher, and consequently all four of their children are musical, with Robert being an accomplished saxophone player and drummer. Music filled our lives when we were in the Porongurups, and this family was a beautiful influence on me.

There was always a smattering of farm animals agisted at Harriet’s place, but life changed for us when she was given an ex-racehorse called Star. He must have been well over sixteen hands and was a mad bolter, prone to galloping off with little or no warning, but we would still clamber up and ride him, normally against the advice of the adults. Freda used to dink me on the back of him. One day, as we went for a canter up the gravel hill behind the main house, Star took off and galloped into the bush—we both fell off spectacularly.

After a time, he was the first horse I rode by myself. It was pretty scary whenever he took off. I jumped off one time near the house and one of the adults told me you should never jump off a horse—you should hang in there and try to control it. I don’t know if that was particularly good advice to give to a little kid on a bolting racehorse, but it’s stuck with me ever since.

But then Mum bought Freda a big gentle gelding called Ben, and after a few rides I decided it was fun. We played endlessly with the horses, leading them around and riding them. We knew nothing about horses or safety, and had no equipment, just bits of rope that we strung together, but we were bumped around until we gradually worked out how to handle them and ride a bit.

After a couple of years, Freewheels School closed down and we moved back to our Darlington house, with Ben in tow. Freda spent hours on him and I’d follow her around, begging for a turn. Finally I nagged Mum until she agreed to buy me a pony for my upcoming tenth birthday.

We went to see a few horses but most were out of our reach financially, or weren’t what we were after. Then we heard about a former riding-school horse that was for sale. We turned up at a grotty riding school to look at her, a grey pony called Casper (for Casper the ghost). I thought she was the most amazing pony I had ever seen in my life, because I thought she could be mine. We took her home and I promptly changed her name to Peppermint Candy, because she seemed sweet, not scary. But we soon found out why the riding school wanted to get rid of her. The first thing Candy taught me was how to hang on—she was very good at shying, and unseated me whenever she could.

Mum initially couldn’t afford a saddle or bridle, so I rode Candy bareback, with just a halter or head collar (a piece of basic harness which fits behind the ears and around the muzzle), and a short length of rope attached with a single clip. I remember falling off a lot and crying. I often felt frustrated and disappointed—I just wanted to ride. I’m not sure how much pleasure I got learning to ride Candy, but eventually I managed to stay on more often than not.

Despite the difficult start we had together, I felt as though I could never love anything as much as I loved that pony. If someone irritated or upset me, I would go and see Candy and say to her, ‘You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?’ I would hug her and tell her I loved her. I felt she understood me.

I turned to animals because they made me happy. And I suppose that was how I became so good at reading animal body language—because I spent so much time sitting with them and watching them. I loved it.

Around this time, Mum and Freda were fighting a lot. I was only ten and didn’t really understand what was going on. Freda blamed Mum for many things she wasn’t happy with as teenagers often do. She went to live with Dad and his new family in Perth. A short time later, they moved to Canberra, then Sydney with Dad’s work as a manager for Perth entrepreneur Kerry Stokes.

I missed Fred a lot when she left, but Julie promised me that she would never leave me. More than once, she held my face between her hands and told me she would always be there. It was comforting for me, and I’m sure for her too.

I felt safe and comfortable when Julie was with me. She always seemed confident and outgoing, whereas I was the baby of the family, a mummy’s girl. She would rush up and give someone a cuddle or sit on their lap, while I would hang back.

A couple of times Julie and I went to visit Dad by ourselves, taking the three-and-a-half-day bus trip across the great empty expanse of the Nullarbor Plain to Sydney. I hated not being with people I knew—without Mum, without my animals—but I did enjoy getting to know our stepmother Jan, and our two adorable little half-sisters, Cloud and Kate, as well as spending some time with Fred before she finished high school and moved out.

Julie also wanted to establish a relationship with Dad, but I couldn’t have cared less. I have early memories of Mum comforting Julie at night as she lay on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed and she sobbed, saying that she wished she had a dad like the other kids at school. I didn’t understand her pain. Dad was a stranger to me, and I felt little emotion towards him. When we went to visit, I could see that Dad was trying to be nice and I felt I was supposed to be nice too, but all I really felt was discomfort. Julie often wrote long letters to him, Jan and the girls and she made sure I signed birthday cards for Cloud and Kate, calling them her babies when talking about them to her friends. She would be so excited at the prospect of going over to see them when we were asked to visit, but I was always reluctant. Our relationship with him was almost non-existent.

During our visits I remember him arriving home from work, eating dinner and sitting down in front of the television. He seemed emotionally detached from the family. I don’t remember him being affectionate, though he did try once, calling me over while he was watching television; I went over and sat stiffly with him while he patted my knee. Then I jumped off the first chance I got.

There was another reason I felt uncomfortable around my father. At home in Darlington, we struggled financially. When Julie and I arrived in Sydney in our worn, hand-me-down clothes, we would be taken to Dad’s expensive house on the upper north shore, full of modern appliances and abundant food. My little half-sisters pottered around in spotless outfits and seemed to own endless stuff. Knowing that Dad didn’t even pay Mum maintenance I couldn’t help feeling hurt. Over time, my attitude towards him became almost belligerent and when I was old enough to say so, I refused to visit him, even though Julie continued to go.

I had such mixed feelings about him. I always felt uncomfortable around him and I think he was uncomfortable around me. For many years I thought: ‘Why doesn’t he want us? Why did he leave? Why doesn’t he have anything to do with us?’ The end result of all this was that I thought, ‘Bugger you—I don’t want anything to do with you either.’ I understand the hurt that caused that feeling and I don’t blame myself for that.

When Julie and I returned to Darlington, to Mum and the animals, I was happy. But other aspects of my life in Darlington weren’t going so well. Mum had seen how far behind academically Julie was when she started high school and she began to worry that I would have similar problems, so she pulled me out of Beenong for my last year of primary schooling. Up until then, I had always been to independent alternative schools which were friendly and casual. As unstable and insecure as my childhood had been, I’d had an awful lot of fun at both Beenong and Freewheels. Now, though, Mum enrolled me at a private school. Not only did I feel like a total misfit, I was bullied both emotionally and physically. I had never experienced anything like it before. On top of that, I found it strange and scary to be sitting in a class not being allowed to talk. The teacher wasn’t your friend; they didn’t come and say something nice to you when they walked in. They would say, ‘Sit down, Zelie, be quiet,’ and I used to think, ‘What have I done?’

My unhappiness didn’t stop when the school day ended. Three boys in particular used to grab me on the way home and push me around, trying to intimidate me. Sometimes I tried to avoid them by taking the back way home, instead of walking down the main road, but somehow they always seemed to know which route I would take and would wait for me there. It was horrible. They used to say, ‘You tell anyone and we will say you are a liar.’ So I never told.

I did tell Mum I hated the school, but rather than let me go back to Beenong, she sent me to Darlington state primary. I was horrified to think I would have to face the same kids who had taunted me as I rode past on Candy. To my surprise, though, Darlington Primary was a relief, because I didn’t get the same amount of physical bullying there. But I still hated it—I didn’t make any friends and I felt like I was different to everyone else.

In my unhappiness, I again turned to my animals. People let me down; animals didn’t. Snoopy and Candy were my best friends and I thought they knew how I was feeling. I decided that you couldn’t trust people—they could be liars and bullies, and were frightening and unpredictable. With animals, I felt comfortable and peaceful. Animals made me happy.

CHAPTER 2

Beautiful friends

Ididn’t have many friends at school, but I did have my horsey friends. This was a small group of six or seven girls who lived in the area and went to pony club together. To get to the monthly pony club rallies, we would either ride the nine kilometres along the old railway line to Mahogany Creek very early in the morning, or get a lift with someone who had a float or trailer. The parents took turns to be the transport person for each rally, delivering a pile of halters as well as a bale of hay and buckets for water for the horses; they would also hand out our lunches.

Our little group went everywhere on our ponies. Sometimes all of us met up, while at other times only two or three of us would ride together. On weekends, it wasn’t unusual to get up in the morning, ride bareback to whoever’s place we were meeting at and go for a