I've done everything but this': Samantha Harris on modelling, motherhood and growing up in public

"It's pouring down in Sydney's northern beaches when I arrive at Pilu, a chic waterfront restaurant, usually buzzing with diners. On an unusually cold and blustery morning, the swell and the rain are the only sounds to be heard. The white-linen tables are silent, the doors not yet open to the public. Samantha Harris, one of Australia's most recognisable faces, sweeps into the restaurant."

"She is casual, in activewear, her baby bump visible beneath her puffer jacket, her longtime modelling agent Kathy Ward by her side. Sipping her chai latte, Harris is smiling as she is congratulated on two fronts: her first child and her first book, Role Model: Taking Up Space in the Fashion World. The book has been more than a decade in the making. Harris says she was an intensely shy young model."

"The second half belongs to her mother, Myrna Davison, who writes of her early childhood on a New South Wales Aboriginal mission before being forcibly removed as a young child, like tens of thousands of Aboriginal children torn from their families. Reading those chapters, Harris says, was gut-wrenching. She pauses before continuing: I'm still learning about it and it's still very hard to read. We know what happened to so many Indigenous people but when it's your mum, it hits very close to home."

A rainy morning at Pilu sets a quiet scene as Samantha Harris arrives pregnant, casual in activewear, accompanied by her modelling agent and sipping a chai latte. Harris began modelling at 13 after placing runner-up in a Girlfriend competition and spent 22 years in the spotlight. Her memoir's first half traces her rise from a schoolgirl in Tweed Heads to international catwalks and editorial shoots. The second half records her mother Myrna Davison's childhood on a New South Wales Aboriginal mission and forcible removal as a child. Harris describes reading those chapters as gut-wrenching and emotionally difficult. The book took more than a decade to complete and is published as she prepares for her first child.

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