Antiques dealer Jill Phillips mourned by brother, author David Malouf

Prominent Queensland antiques dealer Jill Phillips has been remembered as an “extraordinary individual” by her brother, acclaimed author David Malouf, after she died following a long health battle.

Jill Phillips in the Brisbane Antique Emporium in Clayfield in 2014. Picture: Brad Cooper

ACCLAIMED Australian author David Malouf has revealed his heartache over losing his only sibling, prominent Queensland antiques dealer Jill Phillips.

Mrs Phillips – an “extraordinary individual” who featured in many of her brother’s novels, including 12 Edmondstone Street (a memoir of their growing up in South Brisbane) – died on May 22 after a long health battle. She was 84.

Dr Malouf, 86, who lives on the Gold Coast and rarely gives interviews, said yesterday he and his sister could not have been more different yet their shared history, growing up in a migrant family in Brisbane in the 1930s and ‘40s, forged an unbreakable bond.

“We understood things in one another that no-one else can understand,” said Dr Malouf, whose internationally lauded novels include Ransom, The Great World, Remembering Babylon and An Imaginary Life.

“That kind of sibling sharing of a past that nobody else has is what kept us together and was really important, to both of us.

Author and poet David Malouf. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

“You can make allowances for one another that other people don’t know about, even things you share as memories are opposite, according to the way you experienced them, and that in itself is interesting.

“We were absolutely different in our interests and in temperament and that meant when we were young, although we played together, we didn’t always get along.

“She was a very, very lively, daring little girl and that could be difficult – she was extremely headstrong and wayward and got up to a lot of mischief, and in that too, we were pretty different from one another, but that later revealed her as an extraordinary individual … and her courage and confidence, that too was something I marvelled at watching.”

David Malouf and Jill Phillips in 2011. Picture: Adam Smith.

Murray, David, Jill and Leah Phillips. Picture: supplied.

Mrs Phillips, an antiques dealer for 46 years and a respected member of Brisbane’s Jewish community, ran Discovery Corner in Clayfield and worked right up until the day she went to hospital for the final time.

“Mum would sell anything,” said her daughter Leah Phillips, 60, recalling the time she found her parents’ bed had been sold to Russ Hinze, a larger-than-life politician in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era, because he wanted one like it.

“When I was about 10 and Mum had Ascot Unique Shoppe (a fashion boutique and school uniform supplier in the 1960s), I lost my favourite dress because a customer needed that size for her daughter and the shop didn’t have it. I came home from school and it had vanished.”

Brisbane Girls Grammar educated, Mrs Phillips was also an accomplished sports woman in her younger days, becoming a state backstroke champion.

Adventurous and confident, she travelled alone to the UK, Europe and the US in her early 20s, getting around on a Lambretta scooter.

She began buying and selling antiques in the 1970s with her husband Lance Phillips, tapping a passion for old wares and bric-a-brac she shared with her English-Sephardic mother Welcome Malouf.

Mrs Phillips, who also ran Brisbane Antiques Emporium with son David, attempted retirement several times, but her love of retail trading won out.

“She was so well-respected and was president of the Queensland Antique Dealers Association for many years,” her daughter said.

“Always positive and happy despite her deteriorating health, she was an amazing mother and grandmother and an incredible role model to us and so many people.”

Mrs Phillips never remarried after Lance’s sudden death in 1994 and lived in the family home, historic Blair Lodge on the corner of Kingsford Smith Drive and Crescent Road in Hamilton, until she passed.

She is also survived by her son Murray Phillips and nine grandchildren.