Melbourne, 2008
I took most of 2008 off to recover from all things Idol, and then I turned my mind to the future. The trip to LA had sated any great desire to travel. I was happy to be in Australia – in Melbourne.
I needed to find my place again. The evening after I finished my Year 12 exams in 1970, I put my thumb out and hitched to the Gold Coast to surf. I only made it as far as Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills that first night. It was pouring with rain and I slept under a bridge over the freeway just out of town. I was determined not to call mum and have her come and collect me – which she would certainly have done if I had asked. I was more or less on the road from that day until I brought Anna and Katie home in 1996. Now, here in this place, is where I stand.
I was a man who had lost his job later in life. No longer fifty and not yet sixty. It was too soon to retire, but it was late in the day. Starting a new career at this stage of life was always going to be risky. Did I have the capacity to start all over again at the bottom of the pile? Did I have the ability to learn the tricks of a new trade?
Former Australian Idol judges Marcia Hines (2nd L), and Mark Holden (2nd R) with hosts Andrew and Osher. Photo: Gaye Gerard/Getty Images Source: Getty Images AsiaPac
Melbourne, 2009
At 6 a.m. on a very cold July morning, I found myself standing in line with my beloved thirteen-year-old child outside the Optus store on Glen Huntley Road. The line was already round the corner and onto a side street when we arrived. As fate would have it, we got there at the same time as William Lye and his beloved thirteen-year-old child, Josh. William had made the same promise to his son that I had made to my daughter. William introduced himself, and mentioned that he was a barrister. Now there was an option I hadn’t considered before.
As a barrister, you’re self-employed, William told me. In fact, you can’t even incorporate as a barrister. You are fighting for someone’s rights, which is what I did as a manager of artists. A barrister doesn’t work the tedious nine-to-five grind, and there’s no office as such.
It all made sense to me. I had found my path. The idea of working as a solicitor had not really called out to me – an office, office hours, billing your life away in six-minute increments, the chain of authority. I was too old and stuck in my ways to consider entering that world, but the barrister’s life suddenly bloomed before me as a viable future.
Mark Holden as a barrister in 2010. Photo: Mark Holden Source: Supplied by Mark Holden
By the time the doors opened at nine, William had convinced me that the Bar was the way for me to go. I look back on that morning as a pivotal point, a moment of synchronicity. William became my new mentor, one who opened doors and minds to my transition. Where there was resistance, he jumped in with both feet and cleared it away.
I had been a mentor to others in earlier lives, and I recognised the value of the mentorship I was now receiving. It all fell into place and before I knew it, I was signing up to do articles and found myself launched into a new life with new people and new things to learn, new places to be, new tests to pass and new frontiers to cross.
It was no great surprise to my long-suffering wife when I returned to my lifelong fallback position that was never supposed to eventuate. I was still a singer, but I didn’t sing for my supper. I was still a songwriter, but I didn’t finish the song – a record man who didn’t make records. Instead I turned my mind to the study of law again.
Extract from My Idol Years by Mark Holden (Transit Lounge Publishing 2017)
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