As a child growing up Western Australia’s Swan Valley, Clint Strindberg loved playing dress-ups with their grandmother Eileen’s old fur coat, fighting their sisters to be first to slip on the soft, luxurious mink.
“It hung in my sisters’ wardrobe for years and whenever we were playing in their room, we would love trying it on – we’d never even touched anything made of fur before so that was a treat in itself,” they say.
Inherited by their family after their grandmother passed away, it came to represent far more than an odd but lovely family heirloom, says the Western Australian vocalist, WAAPA graduate and musical theatre artist, better known by their alter ego Cougar Morrison, drag queen extraordinaire.
Originally, the fur’s provenance was wrapped in mystery. How did such a luxurious item come to be in the home of Eileen Strindberg, a work-hardened young woman who raised six children in a small, impoverished home in Sydney’s Surry Hills, her Swedish husband, a ship’s engineer, only making the occasional appearance at the family hearth when his ship docked at port?
Clint powders their face in the green room of His Majesty's Theatre Source: Jarrad Seng
“My only memory of her growing up was that she never had any fancy clothing, she never wore jewellery, or makeup or had her hair styled - she never pampered herself, but yet, she had this fur coat,” Strindberg recalls. “She was a selfless person, all her income went to the kids, and they were still always stone broke...so it was amazing she held onto it.”
Strindberg would learn, eventually, that she bought the fur herself with her winnings from local sports competitions. “When she was in her 20s, she was a fantastic athlete and she won money doing that. And so that’s when she bought the coat - and she kept it all her life.”
Strindberg likes to think that for their grandmother, this fur represented more than just a hard-won symbol of glamour and luxury in a tough life. It had another incarnation as a symbol of independence, escape and female achievement, they believe.
Cougar's grandmother, Eileen Strindberg Source: Supplied
“As cliched as the word is, I really think it represents hope,” they say. “It was a memory of profound accomplishment for her, not just her sporting accomplishments but that when she looked at that coat, she thought – I achieved it, it was something I did for myself, it was at a time when I felt important, I felt beautiful, I felt seen. Because once all that life ended for her and she was having to be a full-time mum, it was no longer about her. So there’s a lot of history there.”
For her grandchild decades later, the fur would become, again, a symbol of hope and inner strength.
Growing up in the Swan Valley, Strindberg enjoyed a happy early childhood. “I felt like I was like any normal kid. I excelled in sport, I excelled in academics, but once I got to high school I realised I was severely different to everyone else. It came as a shock. Enormous bullying because people thought I was gay, which I, at the time of course, denied, because I didn’t know myself yet.”
Cougar Morrison getting ready at His Majesty's Theatre Source: Jarrad Seng
Shrugging off the taunts, Strindberg excelled academically, eventually gaining entry to the prestigious Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where they trained as an opera singer. Post-graduation, they did a stint in a summer opera camp in Italy where they fell in love for the first time – and realised they were gay. Coming out to their deeply religious, conservative family back in WA proved traumatic: “[my parents] were crying, slipping excerpts of the Bible under my door, begging me to let their minister speak to me.” Strindberg’s three siblings took their parents’ side. Devastated, the aspiring music theatre performer decided to cut all ties; at the same time, an opportunity to work in New York arose.
“I thought, you know what? If you can’t learn to accept me, you can learn to live without me. I was like – I’m gay, I’m leaving, and I’m taking the fur!”
There is sadness under the mirth; the bitter family acrimony was heartbreaking for the young singer. Eileen’s fur became, for Strindberg, a metaphorical coat of armour, a symbol of strength and resilience that reminded them “that you’ve got gumption in your blood, you are capable of huge strength. It’s why it was a no-brainer that it had to come with me to New York because I was in the pressure boiler at that point and I wanted a fabulous reminder of who I was. It was the first thing I put in my suitcase.”
Cougar cradles their grandmother's fur coat in the ladies powder room of His Majesty's Theatre Source: Jarrad Seng
At times, lonely in New York, they would pop the fur on and “it would feel like an embrace from my grandma - she was such a strong woman.” They drew strength too, from a hoard of cherished childhood treasures contained in a ceramic tortoise their mother made for their fifth birthday: a lock of hair, school badges and sporting ribbons, Euro currency.
Objects have souls, lives and histories, they say as they rehearse at Perth’s Crown Theatre for the upcoming season of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Physical things can be repositories of their original owner’s spirit in tangible as well as intangible ways, from the lingering scent of their perfume to the way they embody a cherished memory or important moment in time.
Cougar's ceramic turtle full of trinkets from their childhood, sitting amongst their drag accessories Source: Video
For Strindberg, this now ancient fur coat, a little battered at the seams but still beautifully warm and tactile, remains a powerful talisman. Having been with them through some of the most difficult times of their life, it has acquired value and meaning beyond the physical. “I don’t wear it anymore, I’ve outgrown it, but it will always be with me. It reminds me of my grandmother and her spirit. She lives on through it.”
At , we see what you see because we’re local too. We drive on the same roads, live in the same suburbs, and have shared WA experiences. So when it comes to protecting your most priceless possessions, our local team is here to help. 
Cougar has been through a lot with their grandmother's fur coat Source: Jarrad Seng
