news.au.com – HUGH Jackman was only eight when his mother left. The day after, Grace Jackman sent a telegram saying she wasn’t returning to the family home, leaving husband Christopher to raise her baby and his four older siblings.
Years later Jackman would acknowledge that undiagnosed post-natal depression had created the crisis that took his mother away.
Grace and her estranged husband would later agree that she would raise daughters Zoe and Sonia in her native England. The three boys, Hugh, Ian and Ralph, would remain in Australia with their father.
“My mother was not well,” Jackman has said. “I always hoped she would come back, but I never blamed her for anything that went wrong. At the time, I was miserable and angry, and my brothers and I used to fight all the time.”
Jackman forgave his mother and yesterday the two were photographed on the streets of New York with Jackman’s daughter Ava.
“Grace has been helping Hugh with the kids while Deborra-Lee (Furness) is in Australia for Adoption Awareness week,” a friend said yesterday.
Furness will be conducting a free seminar on adoption at UNSW tomorrow night. All are welcome.
