For Richard and Caroline Travers: 'It's the love story of when the dawdler met the power walker', by Sophie MacKinnon - 2017

1 April 2017, South Yarra, Melbourne, Australia

Rosie [sister] suggested I give a speech today; the challenge of course with a 70th birthday is to avoid it sounding like a eulogy, but it is my privilege and honour to be able to say a few words about Mum and Dad on behalf of the three of us.

Dad is the embodiment of the word ‘uxorious’.  We grew up in the absolute knowledge that Mum was without fault, incredibly beautiful, and always right.  As a feminist, this was excellent.  As a teenager trying to negotiate an arrangement, not so good.                                                                       

As you know, Mum and Dad had a wonderful year in France together in 2008.  Rosie and I still laugh about it.  She, pregnant, me, travelling with two small children, hauling ourselves across the world for the special moment of sharing Mum and Dad’s great Lyonnaise adventure.  Mum, in her beautiful way, had planned things for us to do to show us their life, and Dad, well, he just felt we’d crashed their party.  We tried not to take it personally!  As Rosie said – it’s the love story of when the dawdler met the power-walker.

As a role model, Mum has been exceptional: she has shown us moderation in all things, that work provides a sense of purpose and engagement, that regular sport with friends is social and fun, that planning trips is half the fun of them, and that one’s voluntary social contribution can also reflect our interests.  And that getting out of bed before 8am is overrated.

Dad, by his example, has shown us that we are the beneficiaries of great fortune.  He shows kindness to all and an enormous empathy for those who are less fortunate than we are.  His social conscience found its outlet in his medical practice in Footscray.  He was able to reconcile the time he spent at Number 36 Collins Street with the stories of people making their way in Australia.  Dad can say “shoulder” in I don’t know how many languages, and is adored by his patients and colleagues alike.

Dad and Mum complement each other so well, as I’m sure many of you know.  Mum loves Dad for his kindness and compassion, although she can sometimes grumble about those traits too (don’t get Mum started on Dad’s ability to get ripped off by the guy in JB Hi Fi).  Dad loves Mum for her level headed, calm grace, and she is and always will be his safe harbour and his greatest love, even more, much more, than the books, and the computer. 

For some couples, once their children leave home they find they have nothing to say to each other.  For Mum and Dad, this has not been the case, and after 45 years of marriage they seem happier than ever.

We lead our own lives knowing that Mum and Dad are not stuck at home polishing their OAMs and playing sodoku.  They’re rushing from choir to ADFAS to tennis to panels to the RMTC or the Club or bridge.

While we talk about the power of love, mention must go to the newest member of the family, Jacko.  In a rare moment of child-directed activity, we had bought a dog for Mum and Dad – Ben collected the pup Jacko on his way back from a job in Queensland, and presented it to them – the tiny Jack Russell puppy began enthusiastically untying Dad’s shoelaces.  It was not well received.  You may recall Dad’s derision.   The principal problem seemed to be getting under Dad’s feet, something we were all quite familiar with.  The years passed, and one day Rosie suggested that Jacko might like to come and live with them in America.  “Wonderful!” said Dad.  And it was only at the very real prospect of losing his little, biddable, shaggy white companion that it dawned on Dad how much he loved Jacko.  Not a cross word has been said since.

We are especially indebted to Jo Ingram – because it was at her 21st birthday party that Mum and Dad met, but mostly because she has Jacko for special sleepovers every time they go away.

A post-script to this tale: Dad persists in calling Jacko “Rusty”, something that luckily Jacko seems to take in his stride.  Amongst the many reasons we would never want Dad to be a widower, one is that any new companion would have to get used to being called Caroline – a lot.

But what a comfort it is that things don’t change too much.  Mum and Dad are not the type to reinvent themselves – why would they?  The red nail polish is as unchanging as the corduroy trousers; he has been asked “How long have you had those trousers Granddad?”. The Yalumba dry white cask may have given way to the Hardy’s Sir James and now the Saint Hilaire, but otherwise things are reassuringly familiar.  Their response to anyone planning an adventure holiday is “what’s wrong with ten days in Paris?”.

We love to see them settled here, in this new home – a little bit Bromby Street, but fresh and comfortable and new.  As with all things, Mum reflects only on the positive of the moment now, not the stress and challenges along the way.  This positivity is probably one of the qualities you admire in Mum.  I often think of the maxim attributed to Benjamin Disraeli – “never complain, never explain”.  My generation does a fair bit of both, but it sums up Mum to a tee – Cazza “No Regrets” Travers.

Sadly, neither Mum nor Dad had parents in-law themselves; but Paul and Lach have each reflected on their great kindness and solicitude.

As grandparents, Mum and Dad are of the old school.  Dad amusing the children with anecdotes and witticisms, and they often quote him: “I usually have muesli”.  He can be found wrapping ankles in bandages, playing backgammon, or helping with homework.  Mum thinks of excursions, plays card games with a competitive streak and is big on manners.  She’s been on a lot of rides at the Melbourne Show and takes pride in her ability to still bounce on the trampoline.   They have visited us in every place we’ve lived – Lake Como proving slightly more appealing that Darwin.

One of my favourite things is to watch Kitty and Mum in a discussion about something; two strong women putting their own idea out there and letting the other one take it or leave it.  Usually this results in a stalemate with neither one compromising, wearing matching gimlet-eyed expressions of cool.  Hattie looks like she’s cut from the same cloth.

Thank you Mum, for making us wear suncream, thank you Dad, for never letting us skip breakfast (or get tattoos).  Rosie, Ben and I are thrilled to be here, we were lucky in the lottery of birth and remain filled with gratitude for everything you’ve done for us, and the people you are.  Now I’d like to propose a toast to Richard and Caroline.

For Ray Wilson's 71st and 1/12: 'My father does love to organise a function', by Tony Wilson - 2016

24 February 2016, MCG Committee Room, East Melbourne, Australia

Hello ladies and ... scrap that , I’ll start that again, hello gentlemen and gentlemen and welcome to the 71st and one twefth birthdayof my father, Raymond Ian Wilson. As dad said in his email, 71st and one twelfth birthdays don’t traditionally beget presents, and as he said in his first email, they don’t traditionally beget speeches either.

But dad, as you all know, does like to organise a function, or more particularly does like to organise a function timetable, and so when the innocents at the MCC handed him a page that had a gaping blank between 7.30 and 11, with nothing but good times and great company and lovely food and fine wine, he went into a panic, and so now we have nine speeches, all about him, and if I check this running sheet ...  Delta Goodrem is on just after 9.30 singing Happy Birthday Mr former Hawthorn District Junior Football League President.

Most of you know I’m tony wilson, I’m Margaret and Ray’s second born, I do have an older sister,  although I have to admit that this all male affair has given me the first glimmer of hope that dad’s gone all Downton Abbey on us in his old age and is going to leave the whole lot to me. Sometimes you can’t fight these things ... Ned’s here too ... he’s the dutiful second son ... off to a life in the military ... I promise I’ll still let you use red hill, especially in those less popular winter months.

My father does love to organise a function. The one he’s had a crack at recently had both Ned and I very worried. It arrived by email with an innocent little bing into the inbox, but then we looked at the subject and it just said, ‘my funeral’. I felt that sinking stomach feeling ... holy shit, dad’s turning 71 and a 12th soon, he’s not getting any younger, this could be bad news, and so I desperately started scanning the page

 ―who’s to be invited ... Don, Ern ... oh that’s nice, mum and sam and pippa are on the guest list for this one,... anyway it’s all here, by all means come up over the course of the night and I’ll tell you whether you got the nod,

-Who should speak ... look at that. It says that he’ll see how I go tonight before he makes a final decision

- what music should be played; Nick Cave seems a bit cool for dad, Annie Lennox . Mozart Piano Concerto No .21 K 467 "Elvira Madigan" Andante
  fuck, you really can take the boy out of Preston can’t you ...

-I’m still scanning desperately

-what he wants to wear to his cremation ... dad loves beautiful shirts, loves them, makes ned and I come over when he’s wearing a favourite and feel the quality of the cloth, and he’ll usually say, ‘can you feel the quality of that cloth’, I’d let you have this you know, if you promised to look after it, ifI came around and found it on the ground, I’d take it back, but you could have it, in fact I’d like you to have it, and then he might get you to try it on, which rarely works because I’m six foot three going four and he’s five ten going on nine, but we go through it because dad loves and appreciates high quality cloth and loves sharing them with people who don’t love or appreciate high quality cloth really at all – so anyway it’s no surprise that dad didn’t want to wreck one of his good shirts in the cremation. Instead he’s chosen this – a simple white T-shirt emblazoned with the image of him running through big Carl ...

So I’m scanning, scanning ... one of the things I’m really keen to find out is when he’s going to die, especially if he knows ... but no details on that ... just endless details on everything ... else

For the wake, sandwiches can be wholemeal bread... egg is okay, but I particularly like chicken and mayonnaise with celery and some sort of herb infusion, I think it might be dill, ask your mother about that ...

Brochure photos ... yep he’s chosen his funeral pamphlet photo ...

Music to accompany the slideshow ... holy shit, what’s this list of jpegs, he hasn’t chosen his own slide show has he?

Scanning, scanning ... come on dad, really hoping you’re not sick ...

Get to the end of the email ... “Love Dad”

Ned is actually the one who replies first,

“Um dad, is there anything you want to tell us’

Dad replies straight away ...

Oh no, everything’s fine. I probably should have put that up the front of the email. I’m feeling quite well.

So that’s great. Dad is not sick, and two pages of funeral plans plus a 71st and a 12th birthday are just, well, dad being dad.

Our theory is that he wants to have the best birthday. He is a very competitive person, and it’s served him well in life.

Not every father tells you constantly where you rank against your siblings.

Not every grandfather tells their three year old grandchild where she ranks against the other grandchildren.

Dad likes winning parking ... he send photos of his great parks to my older sister sam.

He likes winningraffles, and he wins them extraordinarily often.

He likes winning football teams, and is absolutely insufferable when he gets a Collingwood fan in his gunsights and can unleash on sentences like ‘2 premierships in half a century’.

He’s so competitive that when he retired from football, he went down to the local lawn bowls club with a view to taking up lawn bowling. Dad’s theory was that nobody takes up lawn bowling young, and if he did it seriously in his thirties, he’d be a certainty to make the Commonwealth Games team.

He joined a club, had a few bowls, and only stopped because mum sat him down and said what has become a famous sentence in our family ... ‘I’m not ready to be married to a lawn bowler yet.’

I repeated the story to mum yesterday and she said to me, ‘He still thinks that I cost him ... he actually still regrets it!’

Not only is he not sick, but mum says that his latest competitive endeavour is trying to win ‘living the longest’ ...

He’s on a diet,

He’s stretching every morning

He doesn’t drink during the week

He told mum to give away all his Brioni suits because he’s never going to be that size again ...

So he’s set his sights on living forever, and jesus christ, I’ve seen how he tackles a task, he’s not out of it.

Dad, in our eyes is the ultimate achiever ...

Hard working, dedicated, dreams big ... whether it’s getting the Blacks to A Grade or teaching rotten Ronnie Andrews to the best of his ability, or starting a business or caring for kids or playing league footy, or marketing my novel or setting up a roster for his disabled grandson. He’s just amazing.

He believes he can do anything... he believes in his own luck, whether it be the great raffles of life, like marriage and health and career and friends, and also in actual fucking raffles, which he always wins, racking up two business class flights to Dubai in 12 months one year. He believes in his talent. He believes in a meritocracy, and why the fuck wouldn’t you if you won all the time.

Happy bithday dad. You might have won a few raffles in your time, but none is better than winning the one to be your son. Have a wonderful night, and see you all again for the 73rd and three fifths.

For Margaret Wilson - 'What a lovely mum, what a great friend, what a great person', Sam, Ned, Pippa and Tony Wilson - 2015

28 May 2015, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Tony: Thanks for joining us at Mum’s seventieth birthday, for what is undoubtedly a special occasion for us, for a special person in our lives. I tried to think of somebody who has had more impact on me, and all I can say is that when I bought a Slurpee tonight, at Jolimont station, I walked up George Street rather than Powlett Street so that she wouldn’t see me drinking it.

It’s an enduring legacy, and such a thrill for all four of us to speak tonight.

I have a bit of her in me. She is a hoarder as some of you would know. We were clearing out the spices and the medicines at Red Hill eighteen months ago, and Dad said 'just make a note can you, of the record marker' -- and just for your information: Medicines, January 1994. Spices: mace, which had price tag on it that was in shillings and pence.

So I am a hoarder like her, and I can proudly announce that I have the fiftieth birthday speech, I have kept that! And because I know that most of you were there, but this is, after all years fifty to seventy, I can absolutely get away with doing the exact same speech here tonight.

[aside to Ned: You told me not to bag them in the introduction, didn’t you?]

One story I did tell that day is that Mum was once a smoker.

And by that I mean - she smoked once. One time, half a cigarette, didn’t inhale. And yet that fact has been held over her by my zealot father, ‘course your mother smoked once ... 'course your mother had that half a cigarette’ - our whole lives. It’s a defining half a cigarette that lost her any moral high ground as he inhabited the lofty lofty heights of non-smoking superiority.

Pippa: I think that was obviously before my day, non smoking and smoking sections on planes, but the story goes that Mum and dad were going off for a long haul flight, there was only ticket left for the non smoking section, and dad apparently took the non-smoking ticket. He had written letters to airlines, and tried to change the rules, and said that he had a higher claim on the ticket, sent mum off for eight hours in a cabin full of smoke.

Tony: Driving also got a mention at the fiftieth. Think of a location, think of a location like Richmond, and you’d imagine that that is kind of Right, in a direction that is sort of Right. So all of us kids have marvelled at the fact that mum has had the ability to go in right-wards directions, while never turning right. Because she’s so terrified of right hand turns. Terror in the car is symbolic and emblematic of her, we all have sort gouge marks in our forearms now that we're drivers ourselves, from when we’re driving, and she clutches on and screams at inopportune moments. That causes more accidents ... certainly never saves us from any ... but Sam you’ve uncovered the root cause of this?

Sam: I spoke to Lesley, who sadly who had to travel to Europe, lucky thing, and couldn't be here, but she's let me know that she sat with George, Mum's father, for Mum's first driving lessons, and sop the problem did start there. She hopped in the car in the late afternoon, Lesley was younger, so George thought, having so many girls, he could just knock off teaching two girls at once. So Mum's in the driving seat, George is in the passenger seat, Lesley is unbuckled in the back leaning over, and so they are ready to take off -- and George pulls out the clipboard, paper and pen, and being a bit of an engineer, decided to explain how the car works before they start driving -- and they got through the description of the engine, how petrol injects into the engine, the carburetors, everything else in the car, the sparkplugs, and she does make it down the hill next to the house, they go into Severne street, up the hill, there's an S bend that she does brilliantly, she's looking good, and they get to the corner of Severne and Maud Street in North Balwyn and it's a little busy at times and its now dark now because he'd taken a long time to get through the explanation of the engine, and so George says 'Now Margaret, ride the brake now, ride the break!', and she said 'What's the brake?'. Luckily we are all here.

Pippa: Ok, so I just wanted to mention a few of Mum's favourite expressions for you -- Mum likes to call Vita Brits and Weet-Bix 'Granose', offering us Granose everyday of our lives even though I don't know what they are.

She and Dad both call going to the movies, 'going to the pictures', which they sometimes 'go to town' to do.

If they use expletives they are 'shiva' and 'ruddy-hell', such as 'ruddy-hell, the garlic bread is still in the oven!'.

She gets money out of 'the hole in the wall'. Hand's up, does anyone else get money from a hole in the wall? (audience cheers)

She buys things with her 'Bankcard' (audience cheers again)

Tony: Ah, Pippa lost the audience. She however never swears, she's a class act on every front, in fact I've tried to think the amount of times I've heard Mum swear, and it is, was, once. I remember the occasion vividly -- as Pippa said, there have been some 'shivas' along the way, and there have been some 'ruddys', but never, certainly, never have I heard the 'f' word from her.

She embarked upon a ridiculous task of making individually made, hand-stitched bags for every delegate at a National Gallery of Victoria conference that she was hosting here in Melbourne. It was seventy-odd bags, it was finding off-cuts of interesting fabrics from around the world, it was getting them all together. And Mum was piling in with a whole lot of other women who were all similarly involved. Anyway I go around there one day and she says, 'You know what? You can probably have one or two of these bags, I can't give the women of this conference a bag that says “nobody fucks like me”, can I?' There it is -- Tamsin and I did get to keep that bag, and that is the one and only occasion that I heard Mum drop an F-bomb.

Ned: Alright, I'd like to talk about Mum being a problem solver. She's a magnificent lateral thinker. She can solve problems that aren't even problems. One of those occasions for me was when I was about to head off to the UK for a short stint of living over there like Tom is now, and Mum had heard a few things about living over there -- one being the terrible 'the quality of the meat over there. It's unbelievable!' --  and as I as zipping up my bag, she wandered over and said, 'Just slip this in your bag' and it was a cryovac frozen one kilogram rump steak from Jonathan's. So I was of course petrified about the sniffer dogs, but nonetheless I did what she said. And popped over there. It was just beautifully defrosted when I arrived. I was actually on my own at that point so I did have to have steak for breakfast and for dinner four days straight. But it was very nice steak.

She was of course on her best effort with problem solving around food, and she used to, well I wont say bribe us, but she was very keen for us to engage with reading and writing -- and she took us to visit the Balwyn Library, and right next door was the McDonalds, of course. And this where she would say, 'yes, we'll go to the library, but first we'll go the McDonalds but we'll just have a Big Mag,' Oh, Big Mag ... let's go through the Big Mag ...  Junior Burger and then she brought from home in her, did they have tupperware then? Whatever it was, the shredded lettuce, and cheese and tomato. because her shredded lettuce was 'more nutritious' than the McDoanlds shredded lettuce. So she popped that in and gave us all a 'Big Mag' before we got to go over and pick a book each.

But my favourite bit of ingenuity from Mum, was around when we lived in Kew. It was a fair distance – a medium to large distance -- from my room to the laundry, and it wasn't so much of me delivering or let alone washing dirty clothes, or clean clothes going the other way, so Mum decided that we would have a pulley system run across the length, from my room down to the laundry. So she went to the hardware store, up a ladder ten meters, put the pulley up. So we had a massive crowd gathered there for the first voyage, and possibly could have included my lovely wife Olivia who used to, unbeknownst to me, lived around the corner. She had a dog -we had a mad dog called Woody, Pippa's dog Woody -- Pippa married someone called Woody incidentally – Olivia used to live-bait the dog by running her dog up and down, but then she'd gaze in and say, who's that weird cult in there? And that was us gathered around as we had the maiden voyage of the laundry. And it was a very sad sight to see as it just bowed down and down and ended up in the ponds. Certainly it got washed after all.

Pippa: I'd like to pay homage to Mum's ability also to do without tape measures -- , because she can furnish a house, buy stuff for the garden or whatever, just in her own body part units. So her hand, from thumb to finger tip is between 23-25cm, is that right Mum? At the shops, it's like (measures with her hand several hand-spans) -- it's amazingly accurate.

Tony: Mum and Dad are both good at seeing an opportunity for a garment. Dad told me when he gave me this shirt, that if he ever sees it on the floor that he's taking it back because he looked after it for 18 years so well: 'I didn't wash it in eighteen years, didn't need to, because it's fine cloth.' I don't know how he didn't wash it in eighteen years, it's disgusting, but anyway – there's this sense for making a garment last. And as Dad's shirts run out, Mum offers to cut off sleeves, and sew things up and give it to sons-in-laws, and give it to brothers-in-laws, and everyone has a chance if Dad has an old shirt. But perhaps more notable, the thing that really sums up this quality in Mum, and it's in no way tightness, it's about practical thinking and it's about lateral thinking.

The four words that sum up this quality of Mum's more than any other, are; two-for-one surgery. It's been an eternal dream of my mother's to have surgery for one thing, and have another surgeon rock up in the same operation and do another thing at the same time. She's tried her varicose veins with her knees, she's tried her pterygium with her hysterectomy; she's asked them to fix up her toes while they're getting rid of her bowel cancer. It is a dream of hers and I have some very good news, because they really don't like to give kids general anaesthetics, and my little fella, Harry, needs to have his nystagmus straightened up with an eye operation, and he's got a little bit of a herniatedbelly button. I think we should all shout Mum a trip to the hospital to sit in the surgical suite to so her life long dream of two-for-one surgery realised.

Also, Mum is a do-er and participator and is willing to go the full distance if a task needs to be accomplished. She has, as the property manager down at Red Hill, Don Scott – he's here tonight, Don, over there, dual premiership captain for The Hawks, and a do-er himself. And one of our lasting and perhaps scarring memories in life, was Mum, and we had a [John Dere] Gator have you got a picture of the Gator there, Ned? It's like a little tractor, right. So there was some things, I think it was a hedge that needed to be clipped -- which was out of reach for Don, he was kind of, no shirt on, sweated up, carrying what I remember as a hedge clipper, and he decided that because he couldn't reach the hedge, why not get my mother at 67 years of age, to fly along in this little Gator, while he stands on the back with the hedge clipper above his head just getting a nice straight line on the hedge. And I said to Mum, 'Mum, that wasn't a great OH&S moment for me, you know, as a lawyer. Don with the hedgeclipper over his head', and she said, 'Oh for goodness sake, it was a chainsaw'.

Pippa: Actually, the funny bit you forgot about that joke is that you said, “Mum, you could've killed yourself, and Dad said, 'You could've killed Don!”

Those photos have been endlessly rolling tonight, and obviously everyone would have noticed that Mum was, is, incredibly beautiful and has been, you know, a star, really, but she's also got a lovely sense of design and aesthetic and fashion, which she hasn't actually passed on to me. But I get heaps of compliments, and any day, and no-one knows Mum, and I echo in my head, Oh Thanks, yeah, Mum bought me this dress, yes thank my mum passed on these shoes, and gave me this necklace. And yes, I have the same glasses as Mum now, and my sister, so she's been very generous with dressing me up. Sorry about my hair . But everything that she's done has been beautiful, including the house that we lived in in (?).

 Ned: I'll speak for Tony and myself, well obviously we had the hand-me-downs. And Tony might have had his shirt tucked in (by her) more than any person in the world, and I do remember last week, Mum -- and I've just grown this beard as a bit of a lark, and Mum says, 'you know, I just might get a pen and and I'm going to draw a line on your chin of where you're going to shave to.'

Tony: I did get on Race Around the World, and we do sometimes wonder if it was Mum's decision, she said ' you know what you could do, before go on that audition week? Have you thought about dying your eyelashes?' Did it. Got on! Changed my life.

Ned: Mum actually used to write, she was right at the forefront of technology, she had a job at Shell when the computer filled basically thisroom and computer programmers used punch cards, is that right? (Mum:Yep) Now, I don't know what happened, she was on maternity leave and never quite got back to the cutting edge as far as technology went ... It's been a funny story, just putting the slides together, where Mum's all, 'I've got this new scanner and the scanner won't connect to computer ... and I think it might connect over wiffy'. 'Oh, you mean wi-fi, ok'. Anyway it wasn't wi-fi, and it wasn't of course to be plugged in, and then it needed a disk stuck in, and she was trying to put the disk, not into the disk drive, but just into a random crack in the plastic.

Anyway, I do have a tip. She thinks she has fingers that don't respond to touch-screens. But, if you have two hands on the touch-screen it doesn't work. So you all know.

Sam: I'd like to say a few lovely words, and I'd like to thank Mum, for her pantry supplies, and her hand-me down best buys, and her discerning eye, and her witty quiet replies (that no-one else at the table hears), and particularly for her Voutier thighs, I didn't think a Voutier speech could go complete without a mention. And we would like to thank her for being the most amazing, amazing parent. We were parented by a very united front in our parents, we had incredible care, we had musical instruments, endless attention, sport, we were taught to love books and the best way to say this was, we all went to the podiatry school, where the students fitted up insoles, so that even our 'souls' were supported. This love and care has continued through 13 grandchildren, and we can laugh a bit about the fact that possibly you suffered more pain during my labour than I did waiting for Paddy to arrive, when she did wake Dad at 2 in the morning just to continue to talk about him when he was born and Dad...

Tony: Do you remember the line? She said to him 'Ray, Ray, don't you want to talk about him?'

Sam: So were very lucky, she's a just an amazing sister, and mother, wife and friend to us all, and we'd very much like to wish her a very happy 70th birthday and cheers, and we have the fantastic present, whoever bought this champagne glass

Ned: Yes, that's my present from the Santa Steal. I'll get Mum to have that one. Charge your glasses everybody, happy birthday to Margaret.

(Happy birthday is sung)

Margaret: I haven't prepared a speech, that was amazing, I'm not sure how true it was.

I would love to thank you all for coming. Being all good friends to me, for more years than we realise, and when we see those early photos, some of them are quite a long time ago, aren't they?

I also think of those who were not here tonight, so many people amongst you have had cancer, and recovered, but a couple haven't. And we like to think of them when we are all together. And also we have a very sick sister, so we're thinking of her a lot. And I think what we learn is we just have to have more parties to make of the most of these times when we're together. Thank you very much.

Tony: Well that it for our formalities, main course is coming now, and I just want to say that we did put out a trawl for some golf stories, and that is 21 years on a handicap of 45, except for dipping down to 44 for two weeks in 1997, and then back out to 45 – and not one golf story. She is a great friend as you all know,  because anyone who is so socially committed to a sport of which she has been as consistent as she's been, is definitely a great friend. What a lovely mum, what a great friend, what a great person; Margaret Wilson.

Neil Race's 70th: 'We can all marvel at the uncanny similarities between Dad and Twain' - Lucy, Felicity and Emma Race

On the occasion of his 70th birthday Mark Twain made a speech. Luckily for us, someone took notes so that we could plagiarise him today.  Let’s face it, after so many birthdays we were looking for new material.

Twain said:

The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach- unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right.
I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else.

It's almost as if Twain had Dad in mind.

I like the idea of Dad feeling like he can now stand on his “seven-terraced summit” looking down and teaching – “unrebuked”.  The reality however, is somewhat different. This is a man with a wife and three daughters you must remember and while we respect him greatly I am not sure that he has ever been able to tell any of us how to do anything…

Where Twain speaks of “explaining the process and dwelling on the particulars with senile rapture”, it's fair to say that Father has really embraced this notion. Most of us here have been the recipients of such rapture, though he has brought Twain’s concept into the 21st century and does most of his “explaining and dwelling” via a travel blog or Facebook or email or text or Skype or Viber. 

We can all marvel at the uncanny similarities between Dad and Twain. Twain believed he "achieved (his) seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else."  Neil too has stuck to a strict regime. And where a diet of duck fat and red wine would slowly kill most mortals, in father it seems to power him, fuel him for adventure and leave him in pretty rude health.

And his health has been the topic of some discussion over the last few months.  When a “pulled calf muscle” turned out to be a DVT Dad had to spend a few days in hospital.  It was amusing to see the look of surprise on the faces of the medical professionals when they asked Dad for a list of his ailments.  “Nothing” he said.  And for this we are very thankful.  Mostly because we love him and want to keep him around, but also because he’s a shocking patient.  He was bored and impatient, hated the hospital food and really didn’t look great in that hospital gown that is open at the back. 

It is fitting then that Dad spent his actual birthday overseas, having driven Route 66 from Chicago to LA with his good mate Peter.  Nothing flips the bird to the god’s of aging quite like an all-male, Thelma and Louise style trip across the US.  And while they may have chosen a sensible four door sedan for the trip, I like to think that the two of them wrestling to get Dad’s compression stockings on and off provided a bit of spice to the trip. 

In the decade since his last significant birthday Dad has become a retiree, a vocation he takes very seriously.  We are constantly amazed by how busy he is.  Golf twice a week, cruises around the world, and numerous trips to Centerlink when they cancel his old person’s card because he has been out of the country for so long.  He loves spending time at Blairgowrie and can often be found sitting in a carpark overlooking the beach, reading his book.  And while this may be relaxing for him, it is undoubtedly creepy for the young mothers and children of the Mornington Peninsula. 

Dad’s health and activity level may sometimes fool us into thinking that he cannot possibly be 70.   However, we have noticed some changes over the past few years and we have been forced to acknowledge that he is approaching his ‘twilight’ years. In the past he may have been found out on the town late at night. Now he needs an early night in case he needs to be at Aldi when they open to make sure he doesn’t miss a bargain.  Where heated discussion of sport, politics and world affairs may have taken up his time, now nothing galvanises him quite like talk of bin night and those bastard telecommunication providers.  And where, in the past, he would call his three daughters to check they got home safe he now calls to advise them of major weather events. 

He is adored by his 9 grandchildren, respected by his 3 sons in law, treasured by his 3 daughters and who the fuck knows how he has been tolerated by his ever-loving wife of 46 years.

As he stands on his 70 terraced summit he has a lot to be proud of and to celebrate and I am sure he is grateful that you are all here to help him to just that. 

So to finish, Mark Twain made some salient points regarding the advantages of turning 70.  Unfortunately though, Tony Abbot is in power and the age of entitlement is over.  After reading Twain, Mr Abbot made some amendments and from now on these pleasures will only be afforded once you turn 80. So let’s meet back here in 10 years. 

Ray Wilson's 70th: 'The eightieth is always something very special, isn’t it?' by John Clanchy - 2015

21 January 2015, Melbourne, Australia

Note: Ray is 70

Maaaaaaaaa-te!

21st  January 1935 – 21st  January 2015. What a journey!

The eightieth is always something very special, isn’t it? And not just for you and your family but for all your friends too as we look on and wonder whether we’ll ever get there ourselves (let alone get there in your condition).  So celebrate!  Eight decades is not to be sneezed at.

Ray, I was thinking of you today, and so many great memories popped up. I’ll spare you the full-length movie for now and just re-run a few shorts – the first one personal, the other two sporting:

1.      As your Uni mates, we always looked up to you – and only partly because you were half a generation older than us. But even we were surprised when you carried off one of the most gorgeous belles of the University in your final year. I remember Roger Gay and myself shaking our heads when you declared you were going to court Margaret. Jeez, we thought, the guy’s got guts, but the idea of a Northern-Westie Newman boy heading out into the Protestant-infested waters of the abstinent EASTERN suburbs in search of love naturally filled us with dread. We knew this couldn’t work.

‘She’s already said No to him twice,’ I told Gay.

‘Well, he’s heading out there for another try,’ Gay said.

‘What’s the bait this time?’

 ‘He’s gonna tell her that you and I are mates of his.’

‘You reckon that’ll work...?’

It did of course, but Gay and I continued to shake our heads. She’s a Science student, we kept telling each other; she must know that if he’s a decade older than her now, then she’ll never make up the difference. The day he turns eighty, she’ll still only be seventy. ‘Ray’s an Arts graduate,’ I told Gay, ‘he’s full of it; he’ll find a way to fudge it.’ ‘Even when he’s eighty?’ Gay frowned. ‘He’s very fit, I reminded him.’‘True,’ said Gay.

2.      Sports: You were always a superb footballer, Ray – you left the rest of us for dead in skills and attitude. And probably did the same in every field of ball sports - with one exception. No doubt you’ll remember as vividly as I do our first ever game of golf. I was drunk and played superbly. You were sober and totally naff. You sliced the trees to ribbons on one side of the fairway, and you hooked baby starlings out of their nests on the other. You chopped when you should have chipped, and the sight of a sand-trap or a green gave you attacks of the yips. It was the first time on a golf course for both of us, and afterwards (mostly out of feeling for the starlings) I took you under my wing and promised to show you everything I knew about the game. It’s a great memory for me. Especially now that people tell me you’ve become a fabulous golfer in the six decades since, and I take profound comfort from knowing that if you’ve ever had a bad day on the golf course from that day to this (whether it’s the youthful octogenarian yips or the ‘Lazy-Susan’ return of the slice) then it’s got fucking nothing to do with me!

3.      Footy: It’s Grand Final Day, Newman vs Ormond (1960-something). It’s  late 3rd quarter and we’re in deep do-do’s. Ormond has just kicked a goal and taken the lead. The ball comes back to the centre, the umpire (a hired idiot called Minson) is about to bounce it and our leader – Captain Wilson – pushes his opposing captain into Minson’s back, and spoils the bounce. The Ormond captain whirls on Wilson and cries, ‘You prick!’ Wilson’s face turns white with shock. He glares at the Ormond captain and shouts, ‘Who just called the umpire a prick?’. Minson blows his whistle and tosses a free to Wilson. The Ormond captain looks at Wilson and again he shouts, ‘You prick!’ Minson blows his whistle and give the Ormond captain a 50-metre penalty for verbal abuse. From 30 metres out, Wilson slots the goal, and Newman is never headed again.

Brilliant!

Those were the days!

Happy Birthday, Ray.  And may the second eighty be just as memorable as the first!

Bones.   

Ronald Reagan's 80th: 'Mr President, I am proud to have been beside you when you held high the torch of freedom' by Margaret Thatcher - 1991

6 February 1991, Beverley Hilton Hotel, Los Angeles, USA

Mr Chairman, [ Ronald Reagan] Mr President, Ladies and Gentleman.

We are here tonight to celebrate the 80th birthday of a great American.

His is not, of course, an altogether typical American life —not even in the great Republic does every poor boy grow up to be President—but it is the ideal American life.

The extraordinary range of achievement and experience spanned by President Reagan's career—from a poor but loving family in the Depression, to stardom at the height it Hollywood story, to the leadership of the Free World at its most testing is a living example of what the world has learned to call the American dream.

If I may put it in terms familiar to many in this audience, it's a career that begins as Andy Hardy, takes off as A Star is Born, continues as Mr Smith Goes to Washington and reaches its climax with The Best Years of Our Lives.

Your recent autobiography, Mr President, may be the first book ever to win an Oscar—for the best original screenplay.

Ronnie, I was a fan of yours long before either of us entered politics. Kings Row, The Voice of the Turtle, The Hasty Heart they all made their way to Grantham.

I think I missed Bedtime for Bonzo, but I'm told that too was part of the Reagan career.

In those days, Mr President, you were quite popular enough in Britain to stand for Parliament with every prospect of your customary landslide, but you did not take political office until 1966.

Later you became President at the age of 69 and to serve for two terms is—well, quite an incentive to those of us about to start a new career late in life.

Mr President, the Reagan years were great years for America and for the world. They transformed economic malaise into economic recovery—the longest period of rising prosperity in American history.

In summing up that achievement, I can do not better than repeat a remark made by Sam Goldwyn when he was judging a film script: "That story is wonderful. It's magnificent. It's prolific." So too have been the Reagan years.

The economic recovery was but part of a wider recovery of America's spirit and her role in the world.

Mr President, you took office at a time when the Soviet Union had not long invaded Afghanistan, was placing missiles in Eastern Europe, and assisting communist guerillas in the Third World to instal themselves in power.

All of that was reversed by America's recovery of self-confidence, by your calm and skilful exercise of American power, and by the strengthening of America's defences.

Some, I know, have criticised this defence build-up as wasteful or too expensive.

How ill-judged that criticism looks today.

The defence budgets of the 1980s, which you and Cap Weinberger pushed through against great odds, have provided President Bush and the Armed Forces with the sophisticated technology that at this moment is engaged in defeating aggression.

Mr President, you set out to enlarge freedom the world over when freedom was in retreat.

And you succeeded—with perhaps a little help from friends.

Ten years on, freedom is the idea that captures men's minds—in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, in the embattled Baltic states, in the streets of Moscow, in Red Square itself—that is the measure of the change you wrought.

That is your abiding achievement.

Twenty-five years ago in a famous speech you Mr President quoted Franklin Roosevelt to the effect that we all have a rendez-vous with destiny.

Certainly you has such a rendez-vous.

Thank God you were on time.

Mr President, I am proud to have been beside you when you held high the torch of freedom.

Today, far across the ocean in the desert sands, freedom is threatened once again by yet another tyrant of our time.

The USA and the UK, bound by a friendship which has long endured and which has never been closer, stand together in the fight as we have stood so often.

With more than half the free world joined with our two countries against [ Saddam Hussein] the despot of the Middle East, with our successors nurtured by the same ideals, the same belief in peace with freedom and justice that sustained us—let there be no doubt that freedom will prevail.

Enduring success never comes easily.

It is said that

"it take struggles in life to make strength

it takes fight for principles to make fortitude

it takes crises to give courage

and it takes singleness of purpose to reach an objective"

That, Mr President, describes your life story.

On this your birthday we salute you and say "God Bless America".

Mark Twain's 70th: 'We can’t reach old age by another man’s road', Mark Twain - 1905

November 30, 1905, Delmonico's Restaurant, New York City, USA

In introducing Twain, friend William Dean Howells said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, and Colonel Harvey, I will try not to be greedy on your behalf in wishing the health of our honored and, in view of his great age, our revered guest. I will not say, ‘Oh King, live forever!’ but ‘Oh King, live as long as you like!’

There was great applause, and Twain rose to speak:

Well, if I made that joke, it is the best one I ever made, and it is in the prettiest language, too. I never can get quite to that height. But I appreciate that joke, and I shall remember it - and I shall use it when occasion requires.

I have had a great many birthdays in my time. I remember the first one very well, and I always think of it with indignation; everything was so crude, unaesthetic, primeval. Nothing like this at all. No proper appreciative preparation made; nothing really ready. Now, for a person born with high and delicate instincts-why, even the cradle wasn’t whitewashed-nothing ready at all. I hadn’t any hair, I hadn’t any teeth, I hadn’t any clothes, I had to go to my first banquet just like that. Well, everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little bit of a village-hardly that, just a little hamlet, in the backwoods of Missouri, where nothing ever happened, and the people were all interested, and they all came; they looked me over to see if there was anything fresh in my line. Why, nothing ever happened in that village-I-why, I was the only thing that had really happened there for months and months and months; And although I say it myself that shouldn’t, I came the nearest to being a real event that had happened in that village in more than two years. Well, those people came, they came with that curiosity which is so provincial, with that frankness which also is so provincial, and they examined me all around and gave their opinion. Nobody asked them, and I shouldn’t have minded if anybody had paid me a compliment, but nobody did. Their opinions were all just green with prejudice, and I feel those opinions to this day. Well, I stood that as long as- well, you know I was born courteous and I stood it to the limit. I stood it an hour, and then the worm turned. I was the worm; it was my turn to turn, and I turned. I knew very well the strength of my position; I knew that I was the only spotlessly pure and innocent person in that whole town, and I came out and said so. And they could not say a word. It was so true, They blushed; they were embarrassed. Well that was the first after-dinner speech I ever made. I think it was after dinner.

It’s a long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song, and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several times.

This is my seventieth birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition, realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday.

The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach- unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right.

I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining to old age. When we examine the programme of any of these garrulous old people we always find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us; that the way of life which enabled them to live upon the property of their heirs so long, as Mr. Choate says, would have put us out of commission ahead of time. I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can’t reach old age by another man’s road.

I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever desires to commit suicide by the scheme which has enabled me to beat the doctor and the hangman for seventy years. Some of the details may sound untrue, but they are not. I am not here to deceive; I am here to teach.

We have no permanent habits until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up-and that is one of the main things. I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn’t anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity. It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person.

In the matter of diet-which is another main thing-I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn’t agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn’t loaded. For thirty years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me, and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this-which I think is wisdom-that if you find you can’t make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road, don’t you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way station where there’s a cemetery.

I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father’s lifetime, and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847, when I was a shade past eleven; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake. It is a good rule. I mean, for me; but some of you know quite well that it wouldn’t answer for everybody that’s trying to get to be seventy.

I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you’ve got-meaning the chairman-if you’ve got one: I am making no charges. I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn’t break my bonds.

To-day it is all of sixty years since I began to smoke the limit. I have never bought cigars with life-belts around them. I early found that those were too expensive for me. I have always bought cheap cigars-reasonably cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me four dollars a barrel, but my taste has improved, latterly, and I pay seven now. Six or seven. Seven, I think. Yes, it’s seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking-parties at my house; but the people that come have always just taken the pledge. I wonder why that is?

As for drinking, I have no rule about that. When the others drink I like to help; otherwise I remain dry, by habit and preference. This dryness does not hurt me, but it could easily hurt you, because you are different. You let it alone.

Since I was seven years old I have seldom taken a dose of medicine, and have still seldomer needed one. But up to seven I lived exclusively on allopathic medicines. Not that I needed them, for I don’t think I did; it was for economy; my father took a drug-store for a debt, and it made cod-liver oil cheaper than the other breakfast foods. We had nine barrels of it, and it lasted me seven years. Then. I was weaned. The rest of the family had to get along with rhubarb and ipecac and such things, because I was the pet. I was the first Standard Oil Trust. I had it all. By the time the drug store was exhausted my health was established, and there has never been much the matter with, me since. But you know very well it would be foolish for the average child to start for seventy on that basis. It happened to be just the thing for me, but that was merely an accident; it couldn’t happen again in a century.

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But let another person try my way, and see where he will come out.

I desire now to repeat and emphasize that maxim: We can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you.

I have lived a severely moral life. But it would be a mistake for other people to try that, or for me to recommend it. Very few would succeed: you have to have a perfectly colossal stock of morals; and you can’t get them on a margin; you have to have the whole thing, and put them in your box. Morals are an acquirement-like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis-no man is born with them. I wasn’t myself, I started poor. I hadn’t a single moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then. Yes, I started like that-the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can remember the landscape, the weather, the-I can remember how everything looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and didn’t fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World’s Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn’t any exercise; but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not all loss. I sold her-ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was-I sold her to Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum, and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long and 16 feet high, and they think she’s a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match.

Morals are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a sterilized Christian-I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there’s only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.

Threescore years and ten!

It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling’s military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, not any bugle-call but “lights out.” You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer-and without prejudice-for they are not legally collectable.

The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never need it again. If you shrink at the thought of night and winter, and the late home-coming from the banquet and the lights and the laughter through the deserted streets-a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping, and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more-if you shrink at thought of these things, you need only reply, “Your invitation honors me, and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance”, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you in your return shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.