A new book explores many lives changed by the Wayside Chapel’s ministry.
Alana Valentine’s mother, Janice, was remarried in 1969 at the Wayside Chapel, which was run at the time by Rev. Ted Noffs and his wife Margaret.
Many years after her mother died, Ms Valentine found the wedding photo, and the longing to speak to her mother about that day drove her to seek out others who had begun new chapters of their lives at Wayside.
The book explores the Chapel as an institution where people have been welcomed for decades in spite of social taboos around race, class, religion, and sexuality.
Wed by the Wayside is a deeply personal quest, as Ms Velentine explores her own origin story.
The book also celebrates the different, the discarded, the broken and the brave who changed the world from Kings Cross.
The story began as a play, Wayside Bride, which ran at the Belvoir Theatre in 2022. The play was attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon, in one of his first public appearances in office.
Alana Valentine is the author of more than 20 published works, including two books of non-fiction.
Her plays include Wayside Bride, Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan (co-written with Christos Tsiolkas), Wudjang: Not the Past (co-written with Stephen Page) and Barbara and the Camp Dogs (co-written with Ursula Yovich).
Wed by the Wayside is available now for preorder.
