Jill Roe—My boss, my mentor and my friend

[Extract] I arrived at Macquarie University in January 1972 in order to get some clear air by taking work as a tutor in history while struggling to finish a postgraduate thesis at the Australian National University. I knew nobody at Macquarie and, as a relatively recent migrant from Central Africa, next to nothing about the history department. I’d been hired to tutor there in a large compulsory first year history course called ‘The West in Early Modern Times’, and also in a third year subject on ‘Victorian Social History’ taught by a Dr Jill Roe.