Ruth Cotton
Ruth Cotton is well known to many in Newcastle for her huge body of local history work on the multicultural hub of Hamilton. Her Hidden Hamilton blog began as a way for her to find out more about the suburb she was moving to from northern NSW. Hundreds of stories and two books later, Ruth is still just as passionate about her adoptive home.
But Ruth has released a new book, a memoir called A Fragile Hold: Living with Multiple Sclerosis and other Uncertainties, which details her 1997 diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and the changes to her life from that point. In 2020, just as the pandemic locked us in our homes with huge uncertainty, Ruth’s husband became unwell.
From the book ...
When Ruth Cotton walked out of her neurologist’s office in 1997 with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, her life changed irrevocably. At the peak of her career and with three children still at home, all she could think of were the uncertainties – especially whether she’d become wheelchair-bound.
But Ruth continued her full, active life and it wasn’t until her retirement that multiple sclerosis exacted its greatest toll – slowly taking her balance and mobility. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic confined Ruth indoors, news came that her husband’s cancer – melanoma, diagnosed years before – was accelerating.
Overwhelmed by a sense of life’s fragility, Ruth turned to writing to make sense of it all. Giving close attention to her immediate environment, and recording what she sees, hears, and feels, a more mindful way of being and thinking unfolds. Ruth discovers her life need not be defined by what she can’t do, but by what she can. A Fragile Hold: Living with Multiple Sclerosis and other Uncertainties reveals with warmth and unflinching honesty the daily, intimate scenes of a life with multiple sclerosis.
Listen to Carol Duncan’s conversation with Ruth Cotton here:
thumbnail_IMAGE A Ruth’s early-settler grandfather
Ruth’s early-settler grandfather (right) was a significant influence on her (centre) and her sister (1953)
thumbnail_IMAGE B Competing in country shows
Competing in country shows was a big part of Ruth’s early life, growing up on a sheep and cattle property in the north-west of NSW (1960)
thumbnail_IMAGE C Ruth is passionate about travel
Ruth is passionate about travel, pictured here in Rome in 2010. By 2015, travel had become too difficult as her mobility declined.
thumbnail_IMAGE D The cover of Hidden Hamilton
The cover of Hidden Hamilton: Uncovering stories of Hamilton, NSW (2014) showcases Beaumont Street (1954)
thumbnail_IMAGE E Hidden Hamilton Uncovering stories
Hidden Hamilton was launched in 2014 by Carol Duncan, who founded Lost Newcastle in 2012.
thumbnail_IMAGE F A 1940s snap of Norman Santamaria
A 1940s snap of Norman Santamaria outside his Beaumont Street fruit shop is the cover for More Hidden Hamilton: Further stories of people, place and community (2016)
thumbnail_IMAGE G Ruth with grandson Cass
Ruth with grandson Cass at Newcastle Harbour, 2016. ‘My grandchildren light up my life’, she writes.
hamilton150
Celebrating Hamilton’s 150th anniversary in James Street Plaza (2022)
thumbnail_IMAGE I A mobility scooter gives Ruth
A mobility scooter gives Ruth easy access to all her life-needs in Hamilton (2023)
thumbnail_IMAGE J Ruth signing copies of
Ruth signing copies of A fragile hold: Living with multiple sclerosis and other uncertainties, in Hamilton’s independent bookshop (2023)
thumbnail_IMAGE K A fragile hold
A fragile hold: Living with multiple sclerosis and other uncertainties (2023)
Ruth continues to share her everyday life in a new monthly blog called Over Coffee.
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