NSWPL Stories: Ainsley Baker

Ainsley Baker

Seven years ago, Ainsley Baker became a Police Legatee when her father, Sergeant Jason Baker, died at the age of just 44. Like so many of our Police Family, Ainsley shows a strength and a resilience beyond her years. Last year she completed her HSC, despite being locked down for several months. This year she’s taking a gap year, despite being unable to travel to France as planned. She’s working five days a week at a children’s play centre, and plans to travel later this year with friends within NSW. (And France when it’s possible? “Yes!”)

“Every time I think about Legacy I think of them like my second family,” she says. She has good friends she loves reconnecting with through the adventure camps and other social outings, and she loves being around them because they’ve all shared the same experiences. “They just get it. They’re comfortable talking to you because they don’t feel sorry for you. You get to be yourself.”

Ainsley Baker, second from left, at the Kids' Christmas Party in 2020

 

Her favourite NSWPL moment is still the time the camp-bound minibus pulled out of the service station without her and her younger sister. It took the little boy sitting next to her other sister, back on the bus, saying “Hey, weren’t there two other people sitting behind us?” for someone to realise what had happened, and for the bus to swerve back through traffic to collect them.

Next year she’s going to be doing Communications at Newcastle University, living on campus and away from home for the first time. When I ask her if her mum’s going to be okay with her moving out she just laughs. “She’s fine. It’s my sisters – they’re excited I’m leaving!” As a writer and a storyteller, Communications was an easy choice for her. She has no definite plans after uni, but seems confident something will come along. In the meantime, she has 30,000 words of a fantasy novel sitting on her hard drive. Who know what the future will bring for Ainsley, but we’re confident it will be marvellous!

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