Parties and pain at Ray’s home away from home
A PUB in Sydney’s north west has been an extension of Ray Hadley’s sprawling home, but the establishment has been the location of both celebration and pain for the broadcaster’s family.
Opinion
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WHEN customers phone the Australian Hotel and Brewery, known to locals as The Brewery, a familiar voice enthuses about the Rouse Hill pub’s “fresh pure Australian” attractions during a lengthy recording.
“G’day, I’m Ray Hadley. Australian Hotel and Brewery is the premium destination in the Hills for your next function. I should know. I’ve had quite a number there myself.”
Should the customer call go unanswered for a spell longer, Hadley continues: “Don’t forget to get social with the Australian Hotel and Brewery … The Australian Hotel and Brewery will always look after you …”
Hadley has been described by his Macquarie Radio boss John Singleton as “the hardest working, most competitive bloke I know”.
The radio veteran works seven days a week as a commentator on 2GB and Channel 9 and fills his spare time writing newspaper columns and hosting charity auctions. Hadley set this rigorous pace for himself decades ago and at 63 shows little sign of winding back his enormous workload.
With such a workload, he doesn’t have much time for socialising so when he does he makes it count.
The Brewery in Sydney’s northwest has been an extension of Hadley’s home for years, as too has been the Castle Hill Tavern, which is also owned by the Momento Group’s Colosimo brothers.
Hadley and his family, which includes four adult children, Daniel, Laura, Emma and Sarah and a new treasured granddaughter, Ava, are treated like part of the Colosimo brothers’ extended family.
Hadley family birthdays and parties, including Hadley’s own 60th, held in 2014, have long been celebrated at the enormous Brewery precinct, headquarters to community battle of the bands competitions, trivia nights and fundraising events.
It’s a cosy and mutually beneficial arrangement for the Hadleys and the Colosimos, who were regular advertisers on 2GB until, according to station boss Adam Lang, “over two years ago”. Hadley recorded the on-hold messages “as a favour” for the business. He is, after all, as renowned for his loyalty as he is for his furious on-air bombast and emotional outbursts.
Last weekend it was an emotional Hadley who broke down during an extraordinary press conference called by the broadcaster following his police officer son’s arrest for cocaine possession.
“My son revealed to me he’s been having mental health issues,” Hadley said, revealing his initial anger over son Daniel’s arrest had turned to shock and then to sadness.
“I’m not a medical professional and I won’t guess the nature of his illness but I will tell you it’s very serious and his family — me, his mum, sisters, aunts and uncles — are very concerned.”
That police investigators arrested Daniel in the carpark of The Brewery, where he was under surveillance for suspected illegal drug use, demonstrates how safe the younger Hadley has felt at the family’s preferred watering hole.
It is also where he met his new girlfriend Cass Janes, The Brewery barmaid he coupled up with after his marriage to Tahlee Anderson broke down five months ago.
Daniel Hadley’s estranged wife declined to discuss the breakdown of the couple’s 17-month marriage when approached by this column last week.
In a text message, Anderson said she was “not in a position to comment any further prior to Daniel’s court date”, September 12.
Hadley Jr, 28, is said to have fallen hard for barmaid Janes, 21, who in her social media posts is portrayed as a voluptuous blonde with a penchant for taking sexy selfies and has a large upper thigh tattoo.
Much to his father’s dismay, Daniel moved Janes into the Hadley family compound at Dural after the breakdown of the young Hadley’s marriage.
The property has always been Daniel’s home. He and Anderson lived there during their marriage, a situation father Ray was apparently happy with.
He was not so comfortable when Anderson moved out and Daniel moved his barmaid girlfriend in. “Ray feared some might (mistakenly) think it was actually he who was dating Cass,” close sources said last week.
Hadley only recently confirmed that after two failed marriages he has started a new relationship with his PA Sophie Baird.
He declined to talk to this column when contacted last week. In a text he said: “All I’m worried about at the moment is getting (Daniel) better.” He has said Daniel has been admitted to a Sydney clinic.
The arrest of Daniel Hadley, a policeman of seven years, follows a few bumpy years in the public eye. There was an altercation at the Hadley home in 2012 after teenagers gatecrashed a family party.
Two years later both Ray and Daniel Hadley were the subject of an AVO applied for by Suzanne Hadley, the broadcaster’s second wife, after a heated argument in the garage of the family home allegedly turned ugly. The AVO was later withdrawn.
On his first day back on air at 2GB last Monday Ray Hadley thanked his Macquarie Media bosses and listeners for their support.
He also thanked Daniel’s colleagues at regional enforcement.
He added, in a separate address, that the State Government is now looking to start a support service for emergency service workers exposed to trauma and suffering from PTSD, which Hadley has said he believes his son is suffering from.
“It comes amid concerns that mental health issues are being compounded by a bullying culture,” he said, adding he would not talk about the matter further until a future time as it was “not appropriate” to do so.
When Hadley does talk about the association between PTSD and bullying, many of his supporters and non-supporters will be listening.