I was saddened to wake to the news that Faith Bandler had died. Though I had never met her, I felt I knew her, having read all her books including her autobiography, and spoken to her on the phone a number of times. It was Faith who finally helped my father and I find out who we were. Faith’s elder sister, Charlotte, was my great-grandmother. We were South Sea Islanders, and Faith finally helped my father find his birth mother, Elsa.

Since that first telephone call in 1999, I have avidly read about her and followed her incredible life story in print, on the air and online. I remember being indignant early on – having recently discovered my ancestry – that Faith was generally described as ‘Aboriginal activist Faith Bandler’. She was South Sea, but many people would not have realised the distinction.  In more recent times, as her life story…