Turning points: July 06 - Sonia Gidley-King

Helping those in need, listening to one’s heart, living through heartache for a miracle, and taking a risk to chase a dream… four women share the moments that changed their lives.

Sonia Gidley-King, 78, was watching a news report of a disaster in Mozambique 13 years ago when she decided she needed to do something to help, and came up with the idea of knitting Wraps to keep those in need warm. Her idea grew into Wrap With Love Inc, which last year distributed more than 20,000 Wraps. 

“I was moving back from the Gold Coast to Sydney after my husband died in 1990 and a well-meaning relative said to me, ‘If you go to the Double Bay Bridge School and learn to play bridge, you’ll be so popular, you’ll be able to play bridge seven days a week. I thought, ‘Oh no, the rest of my life is worth more than playing bridge seven days a week’.

“I once saw this lady on television who was doing her fourth university degree at the age of 87 through the University of the Third Age. She stood there and said, ‘I don’t count the years; I make the years count’. I thought, ‘Good on her; that’s what I’d like to do’.

“Not so long after that, I went in for my second major surgery and I said, ‘If I come out, please make my life useful’. Well, I did come out and three months later, I was sitting in my little apartment enjoying my cheese and bickies and olives while watching the Mozambique disaster on television. I was watching these people with legs like sticks of celery and I was talking to the TV saying, ‘Someone should do something about those poor people. Look at them – it’s disgraceful’. And a little voice said to me, ‘What are you going to do about it? Sit on your hands?’

“I looked around me and thought, ‘I’m the mum who washed the nappies and peeled the vegetables; I can’t do anything’. So I had another sip of my evening lemonade, and then for some reason I was propelled out of my comfortable chair and to my wardrobe. My daughter had gone to England to get married and had given me her leftover knitting yarn, and I had some of my own left over from making my son’s boarding school jumper. Something said to me, ‘If you’ve got leftovers in your cupboard, thousands of homes will have leftovers’. There are people wanting to help but don’t know how to – so the idea came to me to take this yarn and knit a square, then join the squares up and make a rug.

123   |  Single page