Sydney-born Di Henry is recognised in her native country and internationally as an events manager without peer. She is the recipient of the Australian Order of Merit (OAM), the Olympic Order and her industry’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Marking almost thirty years of professional achievement, these distinctions pale in comparison to the blue-chip honorific of being a seriously fascinating human being. Henry has managed – and management might be her middle name – to finesse several careers, two marriages and many rich and varied relationships into one hurly-burly cavalcade of a life, re-told in the pages of this no-holds-barred memoir. After a childhood that mixed trauma and tenderness in equal parts, and having taken a degree, Henry worked as an art director in Australia’s re-awakened film and television sector in the early 1980s. Arts, event and sports management followed later in the decade.By the 1990s and 2000s, having launched her bespoke company, Maxxam Events, this ‘game girl’ oversaw 18 Olympic Torch and Commonwealth Games Baton Relays, also games ceremonies, arena shows, cultural events and world cup spectaculars. She has produced over 1,000 large-scale public events in over 100 countries. Whether driving a flock of 1,500 sheep down the main street of Sydney, or sending fiery torches across the Himalayas and under the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, Henry has proven a match for every seemingly impossible abracadabra in the events trade, including wrangling Boris Johnson, whose Olympic and events program manager she was at the time of the London Olympics! This Is Your Life meets Celebrity Squares in Henry’s account of her troubled but triumphant journey from lousy beginnings to living legend, beating booze and heartbreak along the way.
