Kerry passed away on March 26, 2025. She wanted to stay at home, and since she had her Duty Wombat in attendance he managed to look after her almost to the very end. The finale was mercifully brief, and we would like to thank Royal Melbourne Hospital for their devoted care in her final four days. The suspicion remains that, like Sir Terry Pratchett, Kerry possibly wore herself out with her prolific output. Since she battled severe ill-health all her life, she did feel that having made it to threescore years and ten, she had done far better than she ever expected.
A full obituary will be published in The Age in due course. And the livestream of her funeral, once edited, will be posted online. We sent her off in style to a packed house, with a superb rendition of Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and many other of her favourite part-songs and motets. The wake was everything a wake should have been, and an enormous thank you to everyone who came. We apologise for keeping her departure under wraps; but we could not invite everyone, and the Duty Wombat went to ground for some days and is only gradually emerging again. Please give him the space he needs!
After the proper obit appears, permission will be sought from The Age to have it copied here. No words can do full justice to a wonderful woman and her life’s work. Those who knew her only from books and the like might be astonished to hear of her long labours to provide equality before the Law in magistrates’ courts. That tale has not been told as yet. But it will be. The best tribute to her work there appeared on her Facebook page, when one of the police prosecutors wrote to express his admiration. They were on opposite sides – like Rumpole, Greenwood never prosecutes! – but she always played fair, taking her role as Officer of the Court with great diligence. Magistrates trusted her implicitly; and as a result many a deserving victim of an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances was spared the full rigour of the law. We have all seen this happen. The thought balloon seemed to be as follows:
‘Well, Miss Greenwood, I note that you are really pushing the boat out on this one. You generally don’t do this; so while I am strongly inclined to a prison sentence, I will accede to your eloquent plea on this one occasion.’
Few advocates are granted such grace. It was because she never, ever told untruths in court.
And that’s enough for now. More will come, but Mr Duty Wombat needs to burrow deep beneath the mountain side and recuperate.