Nadine Wood: ‘I would eat toothpaste and grapefruits that I could find on someone’s tree.’
At age 5, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert star Nadine Wood’s life was sent into a spiral that took years to understand and overcome.
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When she was 15, the physical and verbal abuse that comes with living with an alcoholic mother became too much.
The teenage Nadine packed a single bag of clothes and left the North Adelaide home she lived in with her mother and six-year-old sister. She hasn’t seen her mother since.
Leaving home was a decision she didn’t take lightly, but by this stage, Nadine felt like she had no choice. Her mother had told her to go previously. Nadine would, but had always returned.
Eventually though, Nadine decided that, to preserve her own mental health, she must leave home and try and eke out an existence on her own.
So she packed her bag and moved in with the family of her boyfriend Jason Wood. The now married couple, who have three children, have just celebrated 33 years together.
They have created a life Nadine could only dream of after a turbulent childhood that was turned upside down when she was sexually assaulted at the tender age of five by a babysitter’s brother.
The assault played a significant role in the breakdown of her parents’ marriage and her mother’s path to alcoholism.
“I don’t think my mum could cope with what had happened … she moved (us) to Adelaide and moved on,” Nadine says.
For many years Nadine had no inkling of what had happened to her. But when she was 17 she became pregnant with her and Jason’s first child, and that’s when the suppressed memories of her childhood trauma returned.
“I kept having these really vivid dreams, which were really quite horrific, and I was like, ‘Is this going to happen to my child? What’s going on? What’s happening?’,” Nadine recalls, adding: “I spoke to my Pop about it, who was still alive at the time, and that’s when it all came out.”
In her late 20s, by which time Nadine and Jason had three children, she returned to Queensland seeking justice, only to be let down by the system.
“Before 2009, unless you had been institutionalised, you couldn’t do anything about it,” Nadine explains, adding: “You just got fobbed off. The police said to me, ‘It’s been too long, get over it’. That’s how they dealt with it.”
For Nadine one of the saddest things about what happened to her is that her children, during their formative years, were robbed of the chance to spend time with their grandparents.
She hasn’t spoken to her mother since she left home all those years ago, but, as an adult, rebuilt a relationship with her father.
“It’s a sense of loss and grieving that really never goes away,” Nadine says, adding: “Not that I live it every day, because I definitely don’t. I’ve really risen above that and learnt to give back.”
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Nadine, now 48 and living with chronic auto-immune illness, has been giving back for more than 25 years.
It is through her involvement with local charities – including one she founded with Jason called We Care in the West – and performing.
“As a young mum, I wanted to find myself again,” says Nadine, who had loved drama at school.
“I felt like belonging and community theatre did that for me.”
Nadine has appeared in local musical theatre productions of Les Miserables, Evita, Wicked, The Addams Family and Dusty, to name a few.
Most recently, she played hard-drinking homophobic Shirl in The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of SA’s production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Nadine says it takes courage to play a part like Shirl, who is ugly on the outside and inside, but adds that while audiences love to hate the bigot, she is also pitiful.
“I’ve learned to be vulnerable, and I’m not ashamed or afraid,” Nadine says of the tougher acting roles, adding: “She was fun to play. It was just such a pivotal character in the show.”
Treading the boards also led Nadine to step up her community service which has always been part of her life.
“Community service is in my DNA, so when children with disabilities needed entertainment, I was able to organise that (through theatre connections) and it kind of snowballed from there,” she says of her willingness to volunteer for a number of charities including Catherine House, KickStart for Kids, Puddle Jumpers and Share the Dignity.
At this year’s South Australian Volunteer Awards, she was a nominee for this year’s Joy Nobel Medal.
While it was an honour to be in the running to be South Australia’s top volunteer, Nadine says she takes just as much, if not more, pride in the kindness she has “sprinkled along the way” since leaving home all those years ago.
Back in 1990, after a few months living with Jason’s parents, Nadine found accommodation in a housing trust home and started work at Thebarton’s Snow Dome, now the Ice Arena, to pay the bills.
But making ends meet was a struggle and half way through Year 12 she chose full-time employment, managing the skate and ski rink’s coffee shop, over study.
“There would be nights where I would eat toothpaste and grapefruits that I could find on someone’s tree to try and get by,” Nadine says, adding she chose being independent over asking for help.
“I didn’t want to just be my circumstance. I didn’t want people to look at me like that. I wanted to be loved. That was all I ever wanted.”
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At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Nadine and Jason noticed their elderly neighbours in Torrensville were struggling – suffering from loneliness and isolation.
They responded with simple acts of kindness, a letterbox drop of a flyer offering assistance and then a Facebook page, We Care in the West, to spread the word to those in need and get others on board who were willing to donate goods.
“We started off with a box of food – coffee and sugar and non perishable things – left on people’s doorsteps and then it just grew bigger,” Nadine says.
There have been Easter egg, backpack and pyjama drives, and more.
“The past three years were no fun for people, but I love that we were able to help thousands of them,” she says.
“We had no grants and would either fund things out of our own pay, or people donated items.”
A young man, who Nadine bumped into recently, remembered her not only encouraging him to take on an amateur theatrical role, but covering the costs of his participation because his parents were unable to do so.
“You don’t always think that you have made a difference, but he said he never forgot and so now he’s gone on to a career in the arts from one person just believing in him,” Nadine says, adding that she feels blessed to be in a position to help others.
“I had one bag of clothes and not many people get away with that and end up where I am … it was my spirit that drove me.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
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