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 & Margaret's 50th: 'Fifty is old, very old, and it will remain so until we ourselves are fifty', by Sam and Tony Wilson - 1995

26th January 1995, Kew, Melbourne, Australia

By our reckoning, giving a speech is much like turning fifty - you know that sooner or later you're going to start making a fool of yourself. Take it from us - fifty is old, very old, and it will remain so until we ourselves are fifty. Both Mum and Dad have expressed grave concerns about this speech. Dad isworried that it will be too long. Mum is worried that it will be too "interesting".

But as the straight and narow offspring of two straight and narrow baby boomers, we can guarantee you all right now that we do not possess either the material or the capacity for a long speech, let alone a long, interesting speech.

 My mother and father met at university, and the fact that Margaret  eventually agreed to marry Ray bears testament to the persistence of a balding man who knew he was running out of time. Oh yes, the wonderful Spring of 1966, a year in which the youth of Australia sought to redefine traditional social norms.

As confident as we are in declaring the sixties a time of sex, drugs and rock n roll, we are all the more confident in saying that our parents definitely, completely, without a shadow of a doubt indulged in none of the three.

Sex? Well okay, maybe four times. Drugs? Somewhat unlikely. Bill Clinton says he didn't inhale. Mum and Dad would not have known that you had to. Indeed, with some degree of hostility, Dad quite regularly informs us that Mum once smoked. Mum's version is that she smoked once, and Dad that caught her - half a cigarette at a university party just over a quarter of a century ago. Rock n Roll? Well we have it on good authority from Mum that she did not indulge in rock and roll citing the fact that "rock and roll was for the bad kids — I jived." Such was the crazy, free, liberating spirit that was sweeping North Balwyn Methodist Church in the 1960s.

One story we were particularly keen to relay to you this afternoon relates to Mum and her uncanny ability to lose the unlosable, a characteristic which I have sadly inherited. The year was l979, the month November. Pippa had been born just one week previous - a beautiful seven pound, blonde, blind bombshell. We were living ln Donvale at the time, and Mum had driven us up to the local shopping district to purchase some groceries. Groceries were duly bought, monies duly paid, and Mum was just loading us into the car, when Mr Migliori came racing out of the fruit shop:

"Mrs Wilson, Mrs Wilson - you've left something behind"

"Oh my god, my purse!"

"No Mrs Wilson, it's your baby!"

And sure enough, Mum had left tiny Pippa in the fruit shop. Her explanation at the time: "I'm just not used to having four".

In 1993, my father and his business partner Vernon wood were driving on a particular interstate highway in the Lake Tahoe region. All was proceeding normally. But then, after ten or so minutes of saying not much., Vern turned to my father and said,

"Shit Ray, do you reckon that river over there is running uphill?

Now science is one of the few realms in which my father does not profess expertise, so he pulled over in the emergency stopping lane, his rationale being that if the water was running uphill, then this was indeed an emergency. Finally Dad spoke:

"Gee Vern, I think you may be right."

They got out of the car, and on a coolish March evening on a Californian interstate, passing motorists got to witness the sight of two grown men, pacing out a river bank, trying to determine its gradient, and whether the river, as they suspected, was running uphill.

Take a suburb like Suney Hills. Or take Ashburton. Or even Merricks. I think we'd all agree that if we had to drive to these places they're all sort of that way ... or right. I have therefore spent much of my adolescence and early adulthood, driving to these places with Mum and wondering how she manages to go right without ever actually making a right hand turn. She has somehow managed to redefine geography, spatial relativism and quite possibly human sensibility by mastering a system of going right ... by turning left. As is the case with most significant breakthroughs, the whole thing occurred through a process of evolution. Out of sheer fear Mum refuses to make most right hand turns, and so to compensate she has developed an extraordinary capacity to turn left. And it says something for the ingenuity of my mother, that we can say with complete confidence that should she take to driving overseas, she will evolve further and devise a system of going left by turning right.

And just to demonstrate that Mum is willing to share the nervousness, it sometimes disturbs us that a necessary part of any road crossing with Mum, even today in our late teens and early twenties, is to accept the hand that is invariably offered. Old habits die hard - or so it would seem.

Moving now to infallibility. The Catholic Church currently subscribes to the Infallability of the Pope doctrine, and it was arguably the existence of this doctrine that led Pope John Paul II, upon falling down the stairs and breaking his leg, to look around sheepishly and say,

"I meant that"

Whilst Dad does not yet think he's infallible, we are predicting that he might arrive at that conclusion within the next five or so years. Take the question of eye-sight. The more observant ones amongst you may have noticed that 20-20 vision isn't a huge player with the four Wilson kids. Sarn is verging on blind, and it basically deteriorates from there. It has always amazed us,that despite the fact that Dad cannot read, write, drive, watch TV, play sport or even use his beloved dictaphone without his glasses on, he still manages to somehow blame his wife, who has stoically performed the role of seeing eye Mum for twenty-three years now, for the genetic stuff-up that blurred our vision. For conveniently enough, Lesley, Mum's sister, has a turned eye - not a badly turned eye, more like a slight sprain, yet enough of a defect to encourage Dad to shift the entire responsibility for our poor-sight away from his side of the family.

The more sportingly minded may have noticed that Chris Matthews, the Tasmanina and West Australian paceman, has decided to retire from first class cricket. Some of you would also be aware that Chris Matthews bowled arguably the worst three over spell in the history of test cricket - it included five wides, and three no-balls. He could fairly be described as struggling with both line and length. Let me draw some sort of analogy there to my mother's golf.

To our wonderful parents, I'd like to say Happy Birthday. Sam stayed at home until she was twenty-three, and the rest of us are securely entrenched here in Fort Wilson for the time being. There are basically two reasons why we see ourselves living here for a disturbingly long time. Firstly, there's no denying that it's not that easy to find yourself an exit in this place. But secondly, living with Mum and Dad is fantastic — because we get to see them every day. They're fun to spend time with, and they pursue every facet of their lives with such energy and gusto, that it encourages us to do the same.

So, as they raise their bats this afternoon to celebrate their respective half centuries, we're pleased to note that Dad has grown into his baldness, and Mum out of the terrible health hurdles she's had to overcome over the last few years. Both look fit and well, and ready for the next fifty. But make sure you treat us well, dear Mum and Dad, for the decline will inevitably start, and for the four of us, it has been a lifelong ambition to get our own back at Mum, and to one day clean her face with a saliva saturated tissue.

Happy Birthday again. Thank you.

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. 

Debbie McWhinnie's 30th: 'Thanks everyone for coming by the way! Let's get ... well pissed!'- 2011

2011, Scotland

Oh my gosh! [sings] [Inaudible] loves you now!

I had a few call ups today, and [inaudible] thank fuck we did because [inaudible].

I just want to say a big thank you to Lisa for organising everything. And I'd also like to thank Sarah for helping her.

I'm so shy, I'm so shy I just don't know what to say. I'm a bit lost for words tonight, but I'd really like to thank everybody for turning up. It's absolutely brilliant, thanks. I just wnat to say that everything you gave me tonight is going to charity, [inaudilble] charity!

Sisters! [whoop]. They're not actually my sisters. But they are. They're like best friend sisters.

I'd like to thank my work. My family ... friends ... and [inaudible's] family.

There's too more special people that I'd like to thank as well. One being myself. Nah, one being my Mum, aw she's raging! And one being Big Dave. And a wee splash becasue I'd like to thank my sister and two brothers and their partners, for [inaudible]

I'll just say thanks!

But no, I do like to thank my Mum and Dad for thirty years: they've given me pocket money every week, seemed like we came to stage where we should call it quits, but I dunno. Another ten years and we'll be alright.

But now I'd like Mum, Dad,  you won't even like the flowers so it's alright ... just for everything you've done,. for putting up with me for thirty years, there's been ups and there's been downs. There's been far more ups and than downs. But hey, look at what you produced!

I couldna asked for a more amazing mum and dad, I probably never tell you as much as I do, becasue I got a bit [inaudible] and that, but everything you've done for me over the last thirty years. I'm so spoiled!

They bought me my first car ... to helping me with my flat, to helping me with every boy that comes through the door, so I'd just like to ask my Mum and my dad to come up, and have these flowers ...

[presents flowers, just to mum] Thirty five quid, by the way!

Thanks everyone for coming by the way! Let's get ... well pissed. Can't remember the spelling.  Yeah so let's get pissed, and can we have a few dancers on the floor?

Catch you later! Enjoy your night!