Jessica Rowe has previously penned memoirs about mental health, motherhood, and parenting. But for her new book, the media personality decided to keep things light with a collection of family-friendly gags titled Mum Jokes. So why the foray into questionable comedy?
“I think I’m hilarious. My family doesn’t, but I crack myself up all the time,” Rowe says. “I thought, there’s plenty of dad jokes around, but what about a mum jokes book?”
Rowe has worked as a TV presenter since the 1990s, but despite her natural warmth on screen, the Sydneysider was a very shy child. She credits the ballet lessons she took as a young girl with helping her find her confidence, and wishes she had kept her pointe shoes as a memento. Here, Rowe tells us about that pair of long-lost footwear, as well as some other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
Let’s throw all practicality out of the window and say my wardrobe. It’s like an encyclopedia of my life. Each outfit reminds me of an event, a time, a feeling. Clothes are very powerful: they can lift your mood, they can be your armour for the day, they can protect you and they can build you up when you might be feeling a little insecure.
There’s also the simple joy that they bring me. A sequin, something bright, or a fun pattern has the ability to make me smile, and also make other people smile – I think that’s something you can never have too much of.
My most useful object
My Nespresso coffee machine – I just cannot start the day without a coffee. I have a very thoughtful husband, who is a morning person, and I’m not. He’s always up much earlier than me and brings me a coffee in bed – I feel very lucky! And I have a real sweet tooth. I know that for true coffee aficionados this would be sacrilegious, but I love a caramel syrup in my coffee.
I must be morphing into my mother because whenever I buy a coffee out, it’s not hot enough. If I’m at a cafe, I tell the barista to make it “nice and hot”. And that’s what my mum said. I used to tease her so much – I’d roll my eyes – and I now do it as well. So having the coffee machine at home, there’s no need for any of that, because it’s just the way you like it.
The item I most regret losing
My ballet pointe shoes. I did ballet from age six to 12 and I loved it. It was incredibly nerve-racking because I was quite a nervous and shy little girl. But I loved the poise that ballet taught me.
I went to a ballet school called Hallidays and there were two teachers, called the Mrs Hallidays. They were almost little pixies in terms of their height, but they were fierce. One of them had a stick that she’d use to whack you behind the legs if your legs weren’t straight.
You’d always have to have your hair pulled back, and you’d wear a boring black leotard and skin-coloured stockings – there were no tutus, none of the pretty stuff you see little girls wear now in ballet class. It was really rigorous and strict. But the Mrs Hallidays were such fabulous women; I look back and think of them now as businesswomen who were strong and determined and passionate.
When I finally got to the stage where you could wear pointe shoes, because you had to be old enough, I could not get over how painful they were. I’d always watched ballerinas on stage and they looked so light. Whereas when you actually put the shoes on, you are crushing your toes – it’s like dancing on your bones, and physically it was excruciating. It was too painful so, in high school, I stopped ballet.
I do wish that I’d kept those pointe shoes as a memory of ballet and the magic of a ballet studio – all the mirrors and the music; there’d be a pianist there playing every lesson. It was really quite something, even though this studio was in Haymarket, which was really grotty at the time.
I still love looking at black-and-white photos of Margot Fonteyn and reading about the Sadler’s Wells ballet school in London and daydreaming about being a ballerina. It was magic. That word is overused. But for me, it was magic.
