In late 1980, I was called to the NFSA foyer to chaperone Queenie Ashton for various meetings at the Archive. I galloped down the corridor and took the stair two at a time hurrying to meet radio royalty under the NFSA’s impressive platypus skylight. We were exchanging pleasantries when a short, elegant elderly lady appeared at the Archive’s front entrance.  Pushing the heavy door open, a rather dumpy woman stepped inside. In the resonant foyer space, a deep contralto voice called out ‘Queenie’ to which my interlocutor replied, mid-sentence in our opening discussion matching the deepness of the greeting across the empty foyer, but adding a slightly mysterious tone, ‘The Lady in Black’. Bobby Rae (The Lady in Black) had appeared on Australian radio in the 1940 and 1950 as a masked singer in shows such as The Colgate Palmolive Show. Across a gap of more than forty years, the women clearly recognised each other, and the meeting led to an excellent working relationship with both. But it was also serendipitous. The Lady in Black had just arrived from the UK. Discovering in Sydney that the NFSA existed, she hurried to Canberra. She had stories to share.