Memoir - Waiting at the Gate

Robyn was interviewed on ABC Radio 'Speaking Out" about Waiting at the Gate. Listen to it here.

WAITING at the GATE

"Every day, I’d watch to see if Mum was coming to get me like she’d promised. I’d counted out the fourteen days, and then some, but still no cars. I stopped counting and began to wonder when Mum, if ever, was going to come for me.

Waiting at the gate became a vigil."

At the age of five, after years of abuse, and just months after the death of her father, Robyn was sent on a ‘holiday’ and was never returned to her family. She waited at the gate for her mother to return but it soon dawned on her that her family was not coming to get her. This is Robyn’s story. From humble and sometimes horrific beginnings Robyn became one of Australia’s leading fashion and textile designers and an accomplished artist. In Waiting at the Gate Robyn tells how she transforms her life and comes back from the brink of despair to rebuild her life.

"Waiting at the Gate is a powerfully moving memoir from successful artist and renowned international fashion designer, Robyn Caughlan. Caughlan shares her story with heartbreaking honesty, taking the reader on a troubled journey no child, or woman, should have to cope with, through to wonderful moments of triumph. Not an easy story, but an important one, and, ultimately, uplifting."

Sally Murphy from Aussie Reviews

By Robyn Caughlan with Jason Foster

Published by Magabala Books

Available from ABC shops

Available online at:

"But perhaps the most enduring lesson to be drawn from Waiting at the Gate is the importance of finding the courage to accept the past, and to face the possibilities of the future with optimism. This is a highly recommended read."

Sydney Writers' Festival at Blacktown