Constance (Connie) De Mestre Lovegrove was born in Sydney on 30 May 1923, third daughter to Eric and Kate Lovegrove. Connie grew up in Brisbane, attending the Graceville State School and then, on full scholarship, attended the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School. She finished grade 12 at the age of 15. Connie and her older sisters, Florence and Pat (Patricia), were all involved with the Workers' Education Society classes and the Unity and New Theatre (which opposed capitalist injustice and fascism).

On 22 January 1942 Constance de Mestre Lovegrove married Reginald Kenneth Watson, a navigator on bombing raids in World War Two. He died on 12 May 1944 while flying over Belgium, leaving Connie a widow at the age of 19.

On 5 October 1945 she married prominent Queensland union leader, Mick Healy, who was General Secretary of the Queensland Trades and Labour Council. They had two sons, Jim and John.

Her interest in theatre and her involvement in political activity continued throughout the postwar decades. During the 1940s, she was involved with the Communist Party of Australia, the Eureka Youth League (which operated from South Brisbane), and the Queensland Peace Council. She worked for trade unions and later in legal offices as a conveyancing clerk. She later went on to study politics, law, history and language at the University of Queensland while working fulltime. Connie received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland in 1978.

She was particularly active in the struggle for justice for Aboriginal people. For 16 years, until her retirement in 1988, Connie worked at the University of Queensland.

Jim Healy, the eldest of the Healy children, died in 1988, followed by Mick Healy, Connie's husband of 43 years, died in the same year. In her retirement, Connie returned to university studies.

In 1991, Connie graduated with a Diploma of Australian Studies from the University of Queensland. She was the joint winner of the Dennis Murphy Labour History scholarship in 1992. On 14 October 1994 she was awarded a Master of Arts. In 2000 Connie Healy's masters thesis on the history of Brisbane working class and radical theatre was published as Defiance: political theatre in Brisbane 1930-1962. She was a regular contributor to the Queensland journal of labour history and in 2009 was awarded a life membership of the Brisbane Labour History Association. She died on 5 December 2016.

Murray Norris was born at Renmar, South Australia in 1914, one of nine children. Mostly unemployed through the Depression years, he was 26 years old before he got his first permanent job in South Australia doing droving. Unemployed again, he moved to New South Wales and became involved in the unemployed movement. Norris joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1932. Unable to join the RAAF in the Second World War he joined the Australian Workers' Union and worked at Mt. Isa mines and in the Northern Territory. Norris became an organiser of the North Australian Workers' Union (NAWU) in 1945, eventually becoming Secretary and Industrial Advocate for the Union in 1947. From 1949 to 1951 he was President of the NAWU. He later became a waterside worker in the Port of Sydney, joining the Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia. Norris was a strong advocate for justice and fair treatment for Aboriginal Australians and gave talks at the University of Queensland to this effect. Norris spent his last days in the home of Mick and Connie Healy before going to hospital. Norris died of cancer on 16 May 1986.