for Michael Gordon: 'Decency coursed through his veins', by Fergus Hunter & Simon Balderstone - 2018

16 February 2015, MCG, Melbourne, Australia 

Fergus Hunter is the son of Simon Balderstone, a lifelong friend of Michael Gordon's, who also spoke beautifully at the memorial. (see below)

Most of the people gathered in this room today are probably here, ultimately, because of words. Powerful words and beautiful words and words of consequence – this was the life’s work of Michael Gordon, the man we loved and admired.

And it’s words that have really vexed me leading up to this because I’m not sure I can muster them to do justice to Micky. Funnily enough, I felt a similar unworthiness when sending him pars for the stories we worked on together over the last few years – stories and years that I treasure.

It was my great luck to have Micky around my entire life. He was like a brother to my father for over 40 years and, as a result, like family to me. He was a constant.

The last time I was in this room was three years ago for Harry’s service. Now Scotty – as is his right – has snatched one of my references and themes here. But I would add that Micky on that day also spoke of Harry’s humility and his ability to mix in any company as well as what Scotty quoted.

That same day, Les Carlyon said this about Harry. He said he could scold in print without being mean, he said his was always a human voice.

And the reason I quote that, again, is the obvious one: they’re describing Micky as well.

He was born from decency, he married it, he surrounded himself with it, he passed it on. Decency coursed through his veins. It twinkled in his eyes and radiated from his easy smile. It imbued every word that came out of his mouth or that he bashed out on a keyboard with those index fingers. When he gave you a famous Gordon hug, decency enveloped you.

That trait – and many others – guided him as a journalist and as a person, two identities that were pretty well intertwined.

A special achievement of his was to spend two decades examining Australia’s two darkest and most challenging issues and still emerge with the respect and admiration of a broad spectrum of people. Debates around Indigenous affairs and refugees are highly emotive and deeply complex, they make people very uncomfortable. But at the end of it all, Micky earned tributes from people like Tony Abbott right through to detainees on Manus Island.

You only achieve that by being as intensely respectful and likeable and reasonable and fair, as decent, as undeniable as Michael Gordon.

That weight also meant a lot of his stories on these things got a run or a better run because it was him writing them. He single handedly elevated important issues. That’s how he used his power. That’s what we’ve lost.

Micky was a lot of things to me. He was boisterous yum cha on grand final weekend, he was the papers spread out over the dining table, he was live music in St Kilda, he was bizarre IT issues in the office (I was only occasionally frustrated by that). He was Melbourne, he was The Age, he was football.

While he was like a second father or uncle for much of my life, I got to have him as a professional mentor and counsellor these last four years, a role I know he played for so many people. There was special poetry for me to get those bylines with him because my dad got those byline with him decades ago (not to age you, dad).

There was a column Micky wrote in 2016 that he was obviously very pleased with – he had that chuffed, humble, satisfied feeling about a column. It seems like he may have mentioned it to a few people. It was on the first anniversary of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership and the main point of pride was that he had snuck in a couple of Neil Young references. You have probably picked up the Neil Young theme in the speeches.

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” he quoted.

The Saturday before last, Micky’s body – inexplicably, shockingly, unfairly – decided to burn out. This special man, this giant, didn’t fade away at all. Of course he didn’t. He inspired, scrutinised, and loved right to the end.

Simon Balderstone:

I think I made a strategic error, speaking after Paul (Kelly) singing, especially that song. But seriously, it’s great to follow my troubadour hero, as it completes a Keating – Mabo – Yothu Yindi – Paul Kelly - Mickey – Indigenous circle for me.

There are a thousand stories, a thousand memories, a thousand adjectives to put forward about Mickey, but I just want to in a few minutes provide a bit of a sketch pad, a bit of a framework and outline for you all to colour in, in your own ways.

It was obvious, right from the start, when I first met Mickey when he was the junior at the Industrial Relations round, at Trades Hall, and I had just started at the Age - 1977 – that he was going to be a top journo…and a great friend. I was drawn to that amiable, natural charm…the charm he showed towards everyone – no matter what their station. 

All the qualities he had, built on one another over the decades.

He was always, to so so many, a great role model, a great mentor, adviser, helper, friend…as an example, the parliamentary press gallery is pretty often dog eat dog, but Mickey got on with everyone.

He was chirpy but not cocky.

He was a worker bee, but definitely never a drone!

He was, as we’ve heard, seriously competitive, but not aggressive about it - well, occasionally in Sun vs Age footy matches! Also during runs around the lake, …he’d insist on doing interval work, and constantly broke the group ban on surging.

He was a sentimentalist, with traditions and routines - exercise routines; Grand Final weekends; cloud swallow dumplings; special lunches - carrying on Harry traditions – incl. the Harry lunch….we talked only two weeks ago about how we’d missed last year’s GF weekend but there was no way any of us were going to miss this year’s;  well before that, music weekends in Sydney , with the Cyril B Bunter band and a fledgling group called the Oils ….and special holidays, like Christmas or New Year at Currumbin; Bells Easter weekends – all we consumed were fish and chips and beers; and the weeks at Byron, or Noosa …

…. but as well as being a sentimentalist and loyal, …. he was also, always, open-minded, fresh-minded, for trying something new … (including being a pioneer when it came to surfing journalism, whether it be through Backdoor, or his column) ….

That applied to his music too – he had traditions, favourites…such as Neil Young of course, and The Beach Boys, esp. Brian Wilson, but was always on the lookout for new stuff too, to embrace. -  and he could spot talent too…. Way before she was famous, he spotted Tracy Chapman, singing in a bar in New York, and likewise, in the 80’s, with Paul Kelly, as Jim mentioned. He rang me from New York to tell me about this singer/songwriter, and how he’d just had a kick of footy with him in Central Park!

Micky was gentle and calm but also busy, even frenetic, (especially during what I called his “Club Mickey” days and routines, with activities, routines.…all day, somewhere, an activity to fit in, join in or do….…

He was never a showman - Mickey never made himself the yarn… Yet, as Paul Keating said…not a voyeur, but a participant in the best possible way… that phrase about of yours Paul, I know resonated deeply with Mickey….

He was worldly and wise -  but sometimes so sweetly naïve in his calmness:

When he was in Port Moresby for the South Pacific Forum in 2015, down a very dark road, one night…he and some colleagues were trapped by a RASCALS roadblock, made of 44-gallon drums …blocked in, with the driver desperately going this way and that to try to escape, the RASCALS closed in…Mickey wrote an “armed mob running towards us, pelting us with rocks” …wielding guns, knives. What Mickey didn’t write was that he said: “I’ll get out and calm them down”! –  there was a cacophony of “No way!” - No way Micky:  not everyone is always going to fall for that natural charm – The car blew a tyre, had its mirrors blown away, was damaged by missiles and clubs. But they eventually escaped, when a kind local moved some drums at a dark dead-end, and were protected again later by a copper with an M16 in his boot.

--

Micky got so many good stories, did so many great interviews, by being so decent and trustworthy…gentle, considered, he came away with much more information than some foot-in-the-door, badgering, Spanish-inquisition type journo…

…and also because of his trustworthiness - he never revealed a confidentiality, and “off-the-record” was “off-the-record” …one former polly said to me last week that Mickey never did the wrong thing, never went for target journalism, and always kept his sources secret (which made me realise that the polly must have been one!)

And even when he was naughty he was endearing…after very late nights at the non-members bar at Parliament House, Mickey thought the best way to avoid cops was to drive home to our house in Barrallier Street really slowly, creeping along the side of the road, even half off it…accordingly, the nature strips had to watch out, as did the shrubbery on them - and there was hell to pay on rubbish bin nights!

And Mickey has been so kind to me recently, when I’ve been a bit crook…. that lawn at Berrima which Ferg wrote about so well…the lawn Mickey mowed for us a couple of weeks ago…not sure whether to just let it grow now as a hay paddock, or mow it every second day to keep it Mickey perfect….

To Robyn, Scotty, Sarah, Sally, Johnny…all the family…you’re a remarkable family, full of kind, sweet, strong souls – and we’re there for you.

I’m trying to, as Mickey would say, “feel good, feel strong”.

Love you, Kid!

For Kobe Bryant: 'Love your teammates, love your family, and outwork everyone else in the gym', by Jimmy Fallon - 2020

27 January 2020, Los Angeles, California, USA

The world was heartbroken yesterday by a helicopter accident in Los Angeles that claimed the lives of nine people, including that of Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. Kobe was such a life force, so strong and creative and inspired, that in my head I thought that he was going to live forever. I met Kobe when he was 17 and I was 21. He was a rookie on the Lakers, and I was just starting out in the comedy scene in LA. We were at a party, and we didn't know anyone at the party, so we just started talking and I said like, "Hey, what do you do?" He goes, "I play basketball." I go, "Where?" And he goes, "For the Lakers." I go, "Wow." He goes, "What do you do?" I go, "I'm a stand up comic." We just got along and we hit it off, started talking.

He was telling me he was into poetry, and I met his sister, she was there. And so then the guy that was having the party said, "Hey guys, who wants to make a beer run?" And Kobe wasn't drinking, he was 17. So he goes, "I'll do it." He goes, "Jimmy, you want to come?" So I go, "Okay." So I get in the car, it's me and Kobe Bryant, and he's brand new in LA. And me too, I didn't know LA at all. And we drive down Sunset Boulevard to this place called Pink Dot. It looked like a 7-Eleven. I thought it was a 7-Eleven. You pulled in and... But it wasn't a 7-Eleven.

Anyway, so I go in and I open the door and it's locked and the guy goes, "Sorry, I can't sell you anything." And I go, "We just want to get some beer right there." And he goes, "Yeah, I can't do that." And I go, "But just real quick, we know what it is. It's just there." And he goes, "Yeah, that's not how the way this place works. We're delivery only, we're not allowed to sell things." And I go, "Okay." And then the Kobe takes out his ID and he puts it up against the glass and he goes, "I'm a Laker."

And the guy opened the door, and we walked out with five cases of beer and we saved the party. So we saved the party. We say goodnight. And, of course, Kobe went on to become a legend. Five NBA titles, two Olympic gold medals, 18 All-Star appearances, one of the most brilliant and most respected players in NBA history. And when we'd run into each other over the years, we'd laugh about that night that we first met.

We'd laugh at all the good things that had happened since, and we'd laugh about how much fun it was to raise kids, and all the stupid mistakes we made trying to figure out how to be good dads. And Kobe had four daughters, and I have two daughters. And today he and one of his girls are gone. But I think I knew Kobe enough to know that he rose to any challenge by digging deeper and getting back to work.

So let's honour Kobe, Gianna, and the other lives that were lost yesterday by following his example. Love your family, love your teammates, and outwork everyone else in the gym. To Vanessa and all those affected by this tragedy, we love you and we'll always be there for all of you.

Kobe, when we meet again, we're going on a beer run.

Tony analysis of this speech in Speakola substack

For John Spencer - 'He had the spirit of the boxer, you see', by Richard Schiff - 2005

December 2005, Los Angeles, California

This eulogy was initially read by Bradley Whitford at John Spencer’s memorial service as Richard Schiff could not be present. Schiff recorded it for the West Wing Weekly podcast

To John from Richard. I am a great actor. You can laugh if you want. For seven years, John Spencer has been trying to convince me to get me to say it out loud. I am a great actor. To honor John, I have said it. For those of you who know me, you know how ridiculously impossible that is for me to say. Never mind that I still think I suck. That's not the point. John Spencer came at you with love like Joe Frazier came at Muhammad Ali with fists.

Think about it. John Spencer would come at you, short and powerful, forehead first with fiery eyes and loading that left hook with compliments and adoration and admiration, respect and absolute and pure love. And throw them at you with ferocity and determination and grit. He would not let up no matter how you ducked, bobbed, weaved, and sidestepped. Sure enough, he'd catch you with that left hook and buckle your knees.

He had the spirit of the boxer, you see. He was a fighter. He fought his demons that way and day in and day out, he was triumphant over them, batting them down as they popped up like so many Jacks in the boxes, trying to divert his focus, his drive, his well to be the best human being he could be.

His great weapon was acting. He loved acting like no one I've ever met. He loved the makeup, the robe, the slippers, the trailers, the prizes, the gossip. He ate it and dreamt it, drank it, devoured it like steak. To do it right, he kept those demons nearby, allowing them to live through his acting and so always walking that dangerous, courageous line. The line only great actors and artists must tread on.

John Spencer was a great actor.

I was doing a scene in the Oval Office on The West Wing, a tough scene. John was doing the Warren Leight play at the Taper and had to leave the set every day by 5:00 PM to make a show. He was shot out first. All day long, I was doing this very hard scene and all day it was going well, alive in the moments. When I was being shot, I expected it to go just as well. But John had left for the play, and when I looked over to his chair where he had been sitting all day, the scene suddenly stopped. Someone had replaced John in his chair, and the scene stopped. You see? And I realized that all day in my glances over to John, I had received this great gift. One look from Leo and I had been filled with substance, with purpose, with clarity. And now with John gone, I was empty, and the scene stopped. The play was over, and I had to start again by myself, and I hated it. I told him that the next day. I thanked him for his great gift to us, his generosity, his presence. John was always there for us off camera, giving constantly and totally and forever giving.

I am not present at the memorial because I am doing a one man show in New Jersey of all places. When I told everyone of this choice to do this play, I was greeted with such remarks as, "Are you out of your mind? Why on earth are you doing that?" But John responded with, "Oh, that's great. It's going to be so great for you. What's the play? You're going to kill them." And so on and on. Each and every day, as I wait terrified in the wings to embark on this wild expedition on stage, I talk to John. And I thank him for his faith in me.

I think if John were back here as fearful and shaking as I am, he would smack down those demons and put the proverbial mouth guard between his clenching teeth and tear out on that stage and conquer all.

I thank him every night. I thank him for all that he has given us and will keep giving us. At his funeral in New Jersey, I watched his friends and family and the other Catholics present reach over and touch his casket to say goodbye. And so I did as well, and then felt a rush, an electric surge coming through my hand from his casket. I was reaching out and touching him to say goodbye. I had missed the chance in Los Angeles. Some believe that the soul stays around for a couple of days before it embarks on the next journey, wherever that is. Well John had stuck around I think to say goodbye to us.

Wouldn't it be just like him, one last act of generosity to let us say goodbye, to stick around for a little, just a bit more conversation and companionship to chat about the things in this world one more time. What's the greatest thing you can say about someone? That without them you would not be who you are. John Spencer has changed my life knowing him, and I will always love him for it. With severely buckled knees lying flat on my back on the canvas, in fact, I say this for you, John. I am a great actor.

One day, maybe one day, if I keep talking to you, keep listening to you, I'll be just maybe as great as you.

For Chris Wilson, 'Chris was one of the best songwriters of his generation', Blues Music Hall of Fame, by Kerri Simpson - 2019

30 October 2019, Blues Music Hall of Fame, Memo Music Hall, St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia

There is no available video of this speech

Let’s raise our glasses to Chris Wilson.

It is hard to encapsulate everything that Chris did and was to the blues community in one speech. I think it would be safe to say that all the nominees, and all of us in the blues community, everyone wanted Chris to win. He truly deserves to be the first musician inducted into the Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame. Of all of us musicians, Chris deserves this award because he played more and promoted blues music more in this country than any of us.

Chris Wilson was a giant of a man and he lived and breathed the blues. His commitment was always 100 percent; over the years, he played thousands of gigs. I’ve seen him exhausted, sick and worn out, laying on a couch backstage absolutely knackered, and then he would jump up on stage to blow everybody away, prowling, stomping blowing his head off.

Like any working musician, he played and loved a diverse range of styles and wrote a significant body of original work. However, everything he played was always informed by the blues. Chris was a highly insightful and intelligent man; he read about and listened incessantly to all kinds of blues. He was a deeply spiritual man. He had an extraordinarily astute understanding of the human condition, which showed in his lyrics and in the way he delivered every note. He understood the importance of placement, of one note or one word, one bend or twist, or a multitude of notes and words and bends. Regardless of the genre he was playing, every note was underpinned by his massive command and inherent understanding of the blues.

Chris was one of the best songwriters of his generation; he could write songs that made you laugh and cry, he was astute, observant, he understood people, his songs touched you. We will never forget iconic Australian songs like “Shoot out at the 7/11”, a blues at its heart.

Always thinking of others, Chris constantly sought out new bands and players; he had an excellent ear for new talent. He was a massive supporter of other musicians, male and female, and he employed female musicians and roadies long before that was an accepted thing in this industry. It wasn’t important whether someone was well known or just starting out, Chris would chat, discuss and pass on his formidable knowledge to anyone who had a genuine interest. He would sit and play with beginners or experienced musos; he didn’t care, he just loved playing and never gave “fame” even a thought.

In fact, he hated the whole fame and celebrity thing. I will never forget one night at a club; I was stony broke, having just come back from New Orleans. I’d walked from St Kilda to Richmond to see Chris, Vika and a few other mates play. The club owner had told Chris that he didn't want to give me a gig or let me sit in because I wasn't famous enough. Chris did not appreciate that at all. That was not how Chris did things. Later that night, Bob Dylan’s band came in and sat with Chris’ band. I was side of stage, drinking Chris’s rider because I was too broke to buy a drink. Chris grabbed me one handed by the collar of my coat and suddenly I was hoisted onto stage. He plonked me down and said, “If anyone belongs on this stage, Simpson, it’s you … fucking sing ! ” He pushed me towards his vocal mic and sing I did. That was the mark of the man. I was certainly not the only person he would do that kind of thing for, I was definitely not the only broke or struggling musician he helped out.

One of the reasons Chris loved blues so much was because it’s music for the common man. The blues is the people’s music. Something everyone could feel, whether they were educated in music or not. Blues has a primal power that connects with people. Chris had that same power, both on-stage and off. Those of you here tonight who were fortunate enough to have seen Chris Wilson perform know that when he hit his straps the whole room went with him.

I have seen and heard thousands of musicians in my time. I have seen musicians from all around the world, but no one anywhere could equal Chris Wilson in his stride. His voice and harp playing resonated deeply inside each and every one of us, he took you to another part of the planet. This was a man who made you feel; feel good, feel hopeful, happy or connected. He made you reflect but, no matter what, he always made you feel. As a musician playing alongside of him the experience as Shannon Bourne said was transcendental.

The extent to which Chris had affected people throughout his career was witnessed by the music community’s reaction and support when he became ill. Chris loved community, he passionately loved music and always worked towards bringing people together and helping people out. Teaching primary school kids, secondary school kids, helping out oldies, looking out for mates, helping out addicts, teaching harp. He played more benefits than most of us have had hot dinners.

Over the years, I know so many people found Chris’s music helped them when they had been suffering or having a hard time. Chris’s music made them feel again. When he was ill, I had so many people asking me to pass messages on to him, and that message was always the same: Chris had changed their life. He had often more than changed their life; his music had helped people who were suicidal, going through divorces or deaths. The stories always followed a similar pattern; they were going through a major tough time, but went to a gig, and that was the turning point in their recovery. Chris Wilson’s music touched and changed people’s lives that is why he deserves this award.

The reality was that Chris never helped people for his own gain and he never sought attention. However, there was many a time when he would quietly slip me a fifty-dollar note and say, “Simo, see that person over there … give them this and tell them to get a guitar lesson with it.”

We had a mutual mate who was down on their luck. As always, Chris slipped me a fifty and said, “Simo, can you get them some groceries?”. When I was down on my luck, having come back from the US, having had all my money stolen, and been ripped off, he simply said to me, “Simo, consider it payment for an education in life”. And then he slipped me some money.

Just when his career was taking off nationally and internationally, Chris’s beloved mum, Betty, became ill with cancer. Chris dropped his music without a second thought, he dropped everything to look after his mum.

It was acts like these to many hundreds of people over the years that touched so many people, that made such an impact. The deep respect and genuine love for Chris was evident in the way the entire country showed their support for him when he became ill.
It is shown tonight by this award. Chris’s induction as a Blues Legend into the Hall of Fame.

It was a blessing that Chris was able to understand before he died just how much of an impact he had made on other people’s lives. At the core, he was a humble man, and if he could only have been here with us tonight, he would have been all uncomfortable and saying the rest of us nominees deserved to win more than him.

All of us who were lucky enough to know Chris know that he would have been cracking endless jokes tonight about being inducted. He was a highly intelligent man and we will never forget his wickedly informed sense of humour. He would throw in lines and jokes at gigs that seemed so effortless, and he would have hundreds of people laughing.

He was fearless onstage and off, and he hated the bullshit side of the industry. One night, Pat Cash came in to that same club I was talking about earlier. Cash was pissed and asked Chris if he could get up and sing. Without skipping a beat, Chris told him to fuck off over the mic. “I don't come down to the tennis centre and ask if I can hit a ball around with you … Don't come in here and ask to sit in!”

Of course, no one manages to make a career like that without support, and Chris had his family. His beautiful mum, Betty, used to do all his bookings and management and we all knew, she was a darling. You used to have to call up Betty to book Chris. Later on he had the support of the love of his life, the incredible Sarah Carroll and their two sons, Fenn and George, and his legacy lives on through each of them. Chris was so proud of them, and would have been delighted that all three of them have albums coming out in the next few months.

If Chris were here, he would have been truly humbled and honoured to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It would have meant so much more to him than the other awards he had won because this night and Blues Music Victoria has been set up by people who genuinely love and care about blues music and musicians. Like Chris did.

Thank you to those who nominated him and thank you to everyone who voted for Chris.

And to echo back almost the same words he once said to me “If anyone deserves to be a Blues Legend in this Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame, it’s fucking you, Wilson !”

For Geoffrey Tozer: 'I have to say we all let him down', by Paul Keating - 2009

1 October 2009, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

There is no available video for this speech. The above trailer is for a documentary made about the eulogy.

Geoffrey Tozer’s death is a national tragedy.

For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss.

The national run rate for artists of Tozer’s accomplishment is about one in every hundred years. In fact, if you think of our greatest artists, those who are so regarded in world terms, three come to mind: Nellie Melba, Percy Grainger and Joan Sutherland. In terms of sheer artistry and musical power, Geoffrey Tozer could well be the credible addition to that triumvirate.

Tozer belonged to a small and rarefied stratum of world pianists. He was certainly of a calibre of greats like Emil Gilels, Arthur Rubenstein, Sviatoslav Richter, Ferruccio Busoni and Artur Schnabel, the latter two whose music he championed.

In terms of musical comprehension, intellectualism and facility, Geoffrey’s talent was simply off the scale. He could read an orchestral score, hear the entire work in his head and then play a piano transcription of it at sight. He could transpose anything put in front of him into any key and give a perfect performance of it. He could arrange, orchestrate, compose and improvise; indeed, improvisation was one of his specialties, weaving other melodies through the larger works of composers like Liszt.

The remarkable thing about Geoffrey Tozer was that in these last 25 years we were witnessing an artist with a level of musical understanding and repertoire you would have expected to witness in the last 25 years of the nineteenth century or the first 25 years of the twentieth, when classicism and scholarship in music was at its zenith.

Geoffrey would not have been out of place in 1920s Weimar Berlin in the company of people like Erich Kleiber or Otto Klemperer or Igor Stravinsky. Or with pianists like Rudolf Serkin or Claudio Arrau, who were playing there then.

Geoffrey made his international musical debut at the age of fifteen, playing Mozart’s Concerto No. 15 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Albert Hall. The Daily Telegraph critic wrote that ‘Geoffrey Tozer played Mozart’s Concerto in B Flat with agreeably crystalline touch, faultless technique and good sense’. The Times critic considered that Geoffrey ‘played in a way that many an artist twice his age might envy’.

Following his debut, in Belgium in November 1970 in which Geoffrey played an enormous program of Bach, Beethoven, Haydn and Chopin, the Antwerp-Stadt reported that Geoffrey Tozer ‘has become one of the great revelations to astound the musical world . . . he showed that his technical skill is merely a means to clarify the complete and often celestial way he plays, feeling the deeper meaning of everything he performs. Geoffrey Tozer will become one of the great pianists of the world’.

The following year, in 1971, the great composer Benjamin Britten invited Geoffrey to stay with him for several weeks, inviting him to also perform at the Aldeburgh Festival, where he accompanied the master Russian cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich.

Geoffrey could play anything written for piano from any period in history right up until now. He had virtually played and mostly knew anything of any substance written for the piano. His repertoire included over 200 concertos; for instance, it included 24 of the 27 Mozart concertos. Geoffrey had the ability not just to put himself into the head of a composer, he also had the ability to understand the milieu within which a composer worked, the musical influences at the time, the tastes, the comprehension of the whole.

When the pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva, a mistress of Shostakovich, came to Australia in the 1990s, she said to her tour promoter, ‘I want to hear the one who plays like a Russian’. And, of course, she meant Geoffrey. But if Geoffrey was playing Purcell he would bring an English feeling to the work or Liszt a more obviously Hungarian or middle European one.

He was unbelievable.

Born in the foothills of the Himalayas, Geoffrey’s infant years were filled with music. His earliest memory of the piano was when, as a three-year-old, he began to play Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, music he had just heard his mother teaching to a pupil.

Musical genius flowed through Veronica Tozer’s family and she realised at once that her son was possessed of vast musical ability. Just how rare it was became clear when she began to teach him music of Bach, Bartok and Beethoven.

By 1958, when Mrs Tozer brought her two sons to Australia to settle in Melbourne, Geoffrey was already immersed in music, playing, singing, reading and listening to music on a wind-up gramophone.

It was here, in Melbourne, that the world first discovered the young boy who was quickly dubbed a ‘musical genius’ by Australia’s foremost musicians. Within five years of his arrival in Australia, Geoffrey’s life as a professional musician began in earnest. This was an extraordinary period of his life, one during which he began to receive the patronage and recognition that would enable him to develop the full range of his virtuosic abilities, and become a concert pianist of the highest standard.

In 1963 when Geoffrey was eight, Dr Clive Douglas auditioned him for a concerto performance for ABC television. The performance, with Geoffrey playing Bach’s Concerto in F Minor was filmed in February 1964 with Dr Douglas conducting the Victorian Symphony Orchestra. On April 11 of that year, Geoffrey made his public debut in the Nicholas Hall playing the same concerto, this time under George Logie-Smith. Later the same year he gave at least eight more performances, playing concertos of Bach and Mozart with the orchestra in Melbourne and Ballarat. The phrase ‘musical genius’ was applied to him right from the beginning.

Geoffrey’s introduction to Eileen Ralf was the most important event in his musical development. She lived in Hobart. So, in order to foster Geoffrey’s prodigious talents, TAA announced that it would fly the young musician every week to Hobart and back free of charge, so that Geoffrey could have lessons with Eileen. Let’s hear what Geoffrey himself had to say about her influence and his lessons in Hobart during those early years. I am quoting from the text of Geoffrey’s lecture on the great pianist Artur Schnabel which Geoffrey delivered at the Berlin Festival in September 2001 in the presence of the entire Schnabel family:

By the greatest of good fortune I found a teacher who was the living, breathing embodiment of all the vitality I was getting from the recordings of Schnabel. This was the Australian pianist Eileen Ralf. She opened up for me a world of serious, probing musical thought I knew must exist but I had never experienced. Her teaching was the greatest musical gift given me.

For the next five years Geoffrey performed a vast amount of music in public performances, both in recitals and concerts. By the age of thirteen his concerto repertoire included all five of the Beethoven and nine of the Mozart as well as concertos by Bach and Haydn, and he later added more than 200 pieces to his solo repertoire. Geoffrey also recorded the first movement of the Brahms Second Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a studio performance arranged by Reuben Fineberg, the man who would manage Geoffrey’s career until his own death in 1997.

How was Australia to develop such a rare and prodigious talent, one that was already nationally recognised? The solution came when the committee of the Churchill Fellowship decided to lower the minimum age by five years and award Geoffrey a Churchill, extending it to two years instead of the usual one. Four years later the committee awarded Geoffrey a second Churchill as he began to make the difficult and, for many gifted teenagers, usually impossible transition from child prodigy to fully mature artist.

In 1969, the first of Geoffrey’s Churchill Fellowships enabled him to travel to England with his mother. That year he entered the Leeds Piano Competition and became the youngest semi-finalist. The same year he won the prestigious Alex de Vries Prize, making his debut with the English Chamber Orchestra soon afterwards. In May 1970 he won First Prize out of 157 contestants in the Royal Overseas League competition and was presented to the Queen.

And as I said earlier, on 17 August 1970 Geoffrey made his debut at the Royal Albert Hall playing Mozart’s Concerto No. 15 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis.

In 1971 Geoffrey returned to Australia to begin the next phase of his career; the difficult years of transition when the musical world had to decide whether he was just another prodigy, albeit one of seemingly superhuman ability, or whether, like Mozart, he was in fact a great musician whose artistry would continue to develop and improve as he gained maturity.

At least once a year throughout the 1970s he toured Australia playing concertos with all the major orchestras around the country, while frequently travelling to America, Britain and Europe for concert appearances.

During this period he hugely expanded his repertoire and toured Japan and New Zealand, also giving recitals in Israel, America and England where he resumed lessons with Maria Curcio, a pupil of Schnabel. In Israel, in 1977, Geoffrey won the first of his two Rubenstein medals, being awarded the prize personally by Arthur Rubenstein who described him as ‘an extraordinary pianist’. Many of his performances during this period were recorded and broadcast by the ABC as had been done in the 1960s. They included numerous concertos and recital performances and, sometimes, vocal performances. In 1978, for the ABC, Geoffrey gave the Australian premiere of the Medtner Vocalise with the soprano Loris Synan. This reflected his deep love of the vocal–piano repertoire as well as his ongoing relationship with the music of Medtner.

Geoffrey was already breaking convention by not fading from view like many prodigies before him and by his preparedness to explore new musical territory. He also knew that the vocal repertoire was a vitally important part of his future. The last recording he made for Chandos, released in 2004, the fortieth anniversary year of his career, was of the Medtner Vocalise sung by soprano Susan Gritton. It was a recording which earned Geoffrey one of the best reviews of his career in Gramophone magazine.

In 1980 he travelled to Israel to compete once more in the Rubenstein competition. This time he won the Gold Medal, returning to Australia for a celebratory tour. There, among several superlative reviews, he received what he considered to be one of the greatest compliments of all from the critic Ron Hanoch: ‘Geoffrey Tozer . . . is not only a great pianist, but also a great musician’.

The 1980s were halcyon days for Geoffrey. In 1983 he decided to base himself in Canberra. He was briefly on the staff of the Canberra School of Music until it became clear that his national and international touring engagements were as incompatible with such a position as some other aspects of institutional life. By now Geoffrey had become immersed in the music of Liszt. He toured Australia and New Zealand at least twice a year playing concertos and recitals, while constantly expanding his international career. He made debuts in many parts of the world, including Hungary, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, Holland, Denmark and Austria, returning also to Russia for his debut with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and also touring in Japan.

During the 1980s he began his commercial recording career. Although Geoffrey had made numerous recordings since as early as 1964, none had been commercially released. In 1986 he made his first commercial recording, the John Ireland Piano Concerto in E Flat with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a recording that is still ranked by most critics as the best recording available of that music.

The same year, in recognition of his ability, Geoffrey was one of a handful of musicians around the world to receive the Liszt Centenary Medallion awarded by the Hungarian government. The following year he made his second commercial recording, an LP entitled Geoffrey Tozer in Concert, on which he played the music of Liszt, Brahms, Haydn, Weber and Chopin. In 1989 he joined Peter Sculthorpe to record Landscapes, a disc of Sculthorpe’s compositions for piano and strings.

Geoffrey had spent the 1980s performing around the world while based in Australia. He loved Australia and believed that the time had come when an Australian of international standing could build and sustain an international career from here. This involved substantial costs and, while he could generate a living from his touring engagements, once he had covered the costs, there was very little left. So it was then that he accepted a job at St Edmund’s College, Canberra to help him pay the rent. To its credit, the school allowed him great flexibility so that Geoffrey could continue to perform in many parts of the world while remaining on the staff.

It was owing to his decision to work at St Edmund’s that I first heard Geoffrey play. He was playing two works, one by Scriabin and the other by Liszt, for the school’s end-of-year pre-Christmas break-up. The playing was breathtaking. When the formalities ended I made my way over to him to inquire of his playing and career. It was then that I understood the under-realisation of Geoffrey’s international standing and of his straitened circumstances; earning $9000 a year at St Edmund’s, relying on a bicycle for his transport.

It was Geoffrey’s power and poverty that caused me to realise how little Australia valued artists of accomplishment, especially those in mid-career: in his case, the explosive power of his playing, yet his meagre capacity to afford the basics of life.

This sharp reality caused me to study the circumstances of other Australian artists who, while accomplished, found themselves marooned in mid-career. The novelty of their earlier work having faded, being left to fend for themselves, doing things that had naught to do with their art.

This was the inspiration for the Australian Artists Creative Fellowships, a Commonwealth-funded program paid to artists at about one-and-a-half to two times the average weekly earnings and paid for periods of one to five years. The inspiration for them came from Geoffrey’s greatness and his circumstances. It is not that many other artists were not also great but Geoffrey was one so obviously so and the one I actually ran into.

A country’s indifference to such accomplishment says something about it. When there is no obvious premium on this level of accomplishment, one has to ask, where and when does such a premium apply?

As it transpired, 63 other artists were awarded fellowships under the program and most did something substantial and valuable with their term awards.

In Geoffrey’s case it gave him a chance to develop works in parts of the piano repertoire beyond his great staples like Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Liszt and Brahms. The musician in Geoffrey Tozer fell in love with beguiling compositions that had either rarely or never seen the light of day. One such composer was the Russian Nikolai Medtner, who composed three dramatic and complex piano concertos, only one of which had ever been recorded, and then, during the 1940s in London. Geoffrey began working up these concertos as he did the formerly unrecorded piano concerto of Ottorino Respighi and other compositional works by composers like Rimsky-Korsakov and Busoni. But he had nowhere to perform them; certainly no program to perform them.

So, in 1988, as Treasurer, I made my way down from London to Colchester in Britain in the High Commissioner’s car to engage the founder and managing director of Britain’s foremost recording company, Chandos Records. That person, Mr Brian Couzens, said, ‘why on earth would someone like you be making an appointment with someone like me?’

I said, ‘I have come to introduce to you one of the greatest pianists of world’ and he said, ‘Who is that?’ and I said, ‘The Australian, Geoffrey Tozer’. He said, ‘Yes, I have heard of him but not recently. Has he done anything I can listen to?’

I immediately brought forth a number of audio tapes for his listening. But Couzens said, ‘Audio tapes are often compositions themselves, many artists break down and can’t complete a full work across the dynamic range of the composition’.

I said to Couzens, ‘Well, I will get him over here. He will astound you’.

Well, Geoffrey did get over there. Couzens rang me to say he was unbelievable. He said not only can he play anything; he actually prepares the orchestra and individual players for you. The first thing he recorded for Chandos were the three Medtner piano concertos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi. They hit the world of recorded classical music like a thunderclap and that year won for Chandos the world’s highest prize for classical music, the French Diapason D’Or. In the same year, the recordings were nominated for a US Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance—Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra. Geoffrey and Chandos missed winning the Grammy by one place, to the American cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

France’s top classical music critic, Alain Cochard, wrote of the Medtner recordings, ‘All that Medtner demands, Tozer possesses. This is the playing of a grand master; there is no doubt about it. This is a landmark in recording history’.

Geoffrey went on to make 36 recordings with Chandos, which for any pianist is a major recorded legacy. Indeed, he left behind more recordings of modern listening quality than were capable of execution by the pianists he most admired: Busoni, Schnabel and Rachmaninoff.

But Geoffrey’s great international success with orchestras like the London Philharmonic, the Swiss Romande, the Scottish National Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic was not replicated in Australia. Geoffrey gave his last performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra fifteen years ago, on 5 June 1994, with the Emperor Concerto in a sold-out performance at the Town Hall. About fourteen months later, he played his last concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

From those performances, and for the rest of his life, he received nothing further from any major symphony orchestra in Australia. Indeed, in 1996, in one of the most stupendous performances of his career, he played Brahms’ Second Concerto with the Newcastle Symphony Orchestra under Roland Peelman. In the impossibly difficult passages towards the end of the first movement, we hear Geoffrey Tozer outdo Vladimir Horowitz.

But for all that, he could not make the cut with the latter-day Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Their indifference and contempt towards him left him to moulder away, largely playing to himself in a rented suburban Melbourne house. The people who chose repertoire for those two orchestras and who had charge in the selection of artists during this period should hang their heads in shame at their neglect of him. If anyone needs a case example of the bitchiness and preference within the Australian arts, here you have it.

Geoffrey was not just a musical genius; he was also an explosive performer. Some of these people felt this put an onus on them to engage him, which then, out of some kind of inverted snobbery, they resisted, choosing lesser artists they felt more comfortable with. Or agents they could do deals with.

This malevolence more or less broke Geoffrey’s heart. After all, all he wished to do was to give out. In a famous interview for a Melbourne newspaper, he said, ‘it’s a waste to have someone like me here, not being used’. Artists like Tozer secured the psychic income through sparkling performances and by mesmerising audiences. It was never about money. He only ever wanted enough to keep going.

The last time I saw him play was at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney in 2005 in the company of Miriam Hyde and her daughter to an audience of about fifteen people. He played Miriam Hyde’s massive piano concerto, a concerto she told me needed someone of Geoffrey’s power to play. She had always made a good fist of it herself but Geoffrey ate the piece. On his program, he also had pieces by Sibelius and Scriabin, played with such fantasy and facility you knew you were in the presence of someone extraordinary. In reality, he was simply mucking around with our heads, and he knew he was. But in his humility he threw off these works, self-effacingly, like a stroll in the park.

But he did get to do other things outside of Australia. In 2001, with the support of close personal friends in Melbourne, Mr and Mrs Wu, he undertook a concert tour of China at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture, playing the Yellow River Concerto to a massive television audience. That was the year he performed the Schnabel Sonata for the Schnabel family at the Bergin Festival and then at the Festival En Blanco y Negro in Mexico City. Also, in 2001, on the anniversary of Medtner’s death, he gave the most transcendental recital of his career in the assembly hall here in Collins Street. Though the program was a sell-out and the playing was for the gods, there was not one review of the performance in the media, print or broadcast. This cut Geoffrey to the core.

His last grand tour of Australia in 2004 was a privately promoted one, where he gave over twenty performances around the country, including to a sold-out recital at the Sydney Opera House. The tour was promoted by Jim McPherson, who did Geoffrey the honour and the country the favour that the established orchestras had long denied him and it.

Peter McCallum, the Sydney Morning Herald’s music critic, had this to say about the performance:

‘Tozer plays as though he is trying things out, playing for himself with everything being imaginative and free. Then suddenly . . . something quite extraordinary emerges—a moment of special inspiration, special because it was unplanned, perhaps not fully even noticed or comprehended.’

McCallum went on to remind his readers that Liszt first devised the piano recital. He went on to say ‘Tozer here revived something of its original spirit: a great Australian musician and a true original’.

His early death at age 54 reminds us of the death of Maria Callas at the age of 53. Performing all their lives, both artists finally reached the stage of wondering what it is all about. After operating constantly at a level of high achievement they needed the spiritual sustenance of audiences and friends. They needed the acclamation to stir the genius in them. When the acclaim stopped, both of these people turned towards an inner, more human life, with a lower premium on the art and on longevity. Geoffrey had had a bout of hepatitis. He lived by himself, didn’t look after himself and his health suffered accordingly. In the end, his liver failed.

But I have to say we all let him down. Franco Zeffirelli, Callas’s great collaborator, said much the same thing following her death. He said ‘we thought she was all right in Paris, that she had the intellectual resources to hang on, if even in semi-seclusion’. But as it turned out, she didn’t. We should have cared more and done more. He could have been speaking for us about Geoffrey Tozer.

That said, it’s also worth saying that Geoffrey had many who cared deeply for him. Most of all, his mother and teacher, who put pressure on him but also loved everything about him, Reuben Fineberg, his mentor and manager, whom he lost in 1997 and Peter-Wyllie Johnston, the executor of Geoffrey’s estate, who took up where Reuben Fineberg left off and gave Geoffrey succour and support at important periods over the last decade.

Geoffrey is survived by his brother Peter and members of his extended family.

Geoffrey Tozer’s last public performance was here in Victoria with David Pereira in Bendigo, an artist whom he held in the highest esteem and finally, more privately, for the nuns and brothers at the Presentation Convent Chapel in Windsor.

When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal. Geoffrey Tozer did this for many people. His remembrance is the small recompense we give him in return.

The film The Eulogy was inspired by Paul Keating’s speech.

For Gopal Krishna Gokhale: 'Gokhale is dead leaving me behind', by Pherozeshah Mehta - 1915

5 March 1915, Town Hall, Bombay (Mumbai), India

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen – All thoughts of making a great speech about this great man and his great work have been driven out of my mind. I could have taken up hours and hours recounting all that I know of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, his noble life and his brilliant career. But I feel that the example which His Excellency with his unerring judgement has set us of being very brief, is the wisest one. Even if all thoughts of making a great speech had not vanished from my mind, on seeing this vast gathering they would have vanished, inconsequence of my own inability to do justice to that eminent Servant of India in the manner I should have liked to have done. No speeches are required about him, no words are necessary to recount his manifold activities. This gathering and the gatherings all over the country are eloquent speeches to speak of him as he deserves to be spoken of.

Even if I attempted to make a long speech I feel I could not have spoken connectedly and coherently for the reason that I feel so sad, so depressed, so forsaken, advancing as I am in years, on seeing valued and beloved colleague after colleague dropping away from my side. Telang has been gathered to his fathers, Ranade is no more amongst us, Badruddin has passed away, our beloved Gokhale alas! has now closed his eyes for ever and forever, and many others, whom I could name are leaving me one after another, forsaken and desolate. I feel almost alone in the stupendous work for the country which is still pending before us. But memories and associations that come up before my mind’s eye would scarcely leave me any power to dilate on details.

Within the last few days before his death I had numerous opportunities of conference and communion with him in Bombay and in Poona whither I went to pass my Christmas holidays this time, for the purpose of meeting him and speaking to him on many and many an important subject. We were together on several occasions and who could have thought then that we were no more to meet!– who could have dreamed that his end would come so soon! I cannot but recall with a keen sense of regret what plans he laid down for the present year, what hopes he had for making himself useful to his countrymen, what work he chalked out for himself for the development and advancement of the country which he loved so dearly! For many and many a long day some of us would only be able to give out the sore, the bitter and the pathetic cry as we miss him day after day –

But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Ladies and gentlemen, Gokhale is dead. How dearly we loved each other, how genuinely we trusted each other, what regard he had for me and l had for him, words fail me at the present moment to convey to you. In an attempt to speak of him all that comes back to my mind is - “Gokhale is dead leaving me behind. What shall l do to consummate the tremendous work that is lying before me! How should I act to carry out the plans we had chalked out, without his help, without his society, without his guidance and without his cooperationl”

Ladies and gentlemen, the previous speakers have informed you rightly that everything that could be said about Mr. Gokhale was said by the noble Viceroy in the Imperial Council and by our beloved Governor on more than one occasion. All that now I can do is to associate myself with Their Excellencies in paying my last tribute to the memory of a great and a good man and to add that Gokhale was a great gentleman and that he possessed a great moral and spiritual power which he exercised overall classes of people and which enabled him to carry out the great work which he had undoubtedly performed for the benefit of his countrymen whom he has left weeping behind him.

For Danny Frawley: 'Like Danny, there was a time when I thought I was fixed', by Wayne Schwass - 2019

18 September 2019, Kingston Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia

We live in a world that expects men to be tough to be strong, to be stoic, resilient but also unemotional. A world that judges, criticises, labels men who show vulnerability, sensitivity, insecurity and their emotions.

Being emotional as a man is often seen as weak or soft, that somehow you’re not a man, you’re not man enough and even good enough.

The male mantra harden up, suck it up, man up has been handed down from generation to generation, like it’s some sort of badge of honour, that teaches us from a very early age that to be a man, a real man, you need to be tough, you don’t cry, talk or show your emotions.

These messages are damaging and destructive and in my opinion are contributing to a growing number of males from young boys to older men across our great country who are in pain, hurting and are perhaps paralysed by the suffocating fear of being judged, seen as weak or losing respect.

Some of us choose to stay silent because of fear, fear of losing everything. Even if that means it’s at the expense of your own health and well-being.

It’s time to challenge the old way, a narrative that no longer serves us. It’s not about blame or shame, it’s about responsibility and opportunity.

To quote Danny “Manning up in the past was to suffer in silence, manning up now is to put your hand up.”

Fellas it’s okay to be in pain. It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to be sad. But it’s no longer okay to suffer in silence

If you don’t think this is important, that’s okay but I strongly disagree. It’s never been more important for our boys, the next generation of men, husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers, coaches, teachers, leaders and future role models.

To be allowed, encouraged and supported to be emotionally connected and expressive.

To be vulnerable, and to be empowered to cry without fear or judgement.

It’s time for a new narrative.

Like Danny, there was a time when I thought I was fixed, that I’d beaten my mental health conditions. I used to tell people that I was fixed. But this implies that I was broken and needed fixing. I’m not broken and I don’t need fixing.

I’m on a 26-year mental health journey that will continue for the rest of my life, and I’m comfortable with that. You see my health and well being is ultimately my responsibility. it’s up to me to stay healthy and well.

There is a reason why I no longer drink alcohol. There is a reason why I exercise. There is a reason why I prioritise sleep. There is a reason why I try to eat well. There is a reason why I see my GP regularly. There is a reason why I’m engaged and constantly talking to my support network.

When necessary, there is a reason why I take medication. Those reasons are all the same: because my mental health and wellbeing depends on it. If I don’t do the things I need to do every day then ultimately I will pay a price. My mental health suffers. And it’s simply not worth that.

It’s a daily responsibility and commitment to my ongoing mental health and well being.

So to anyone here today who has, or who is living with a mental health condition I want you to make a similar commitment, I want you to make a similar commitment to your mental health and well being. Please don’t compromise your mental health. Please put your wellbeing first, please eliminate the things that don’t help you, please start investing in things that are good for you and your mental health.

Please, please, please follow the advice of your GP and your clinicians, invest the time into your recovery and even when you think you’ve recovered, please keep investing, keep working. Keep learning new tools and strategies that will help your mental health.

Mental health conditions are insidious and invasive, and a life with mental health conditions can be difficult. Very challenging. Exhausting. And at times completely overwhelming.

But life can be great again.

You can get healthy again, happy again, and the colour can and does come back into your life. But it takes hard work, perseverance, and a lot of patience.

To anyone here today who has or is supporting a loved one living with a mental health condition, it can be a thankless task at times. Thank you for picking us up. Thank you for not losing hope. And thank you for keeping us connected.

Daniel Patrick Frawley, aka Spud was known and respected for the courage he displayed on a football field. But courage comes in many forms, and it was his courage to fight his own mental health conditions using those experiences to share his own journey, in the hope of removing stigma, and encouraging others going through similar experiences to ask for help, that I admired most.

Even in his darkest days in recent weeks, he was still championing his message. That no man should ever have to walk alone. That you don’t have to suffer in silence. And that you should ask for help.

That’s courage. That’s strength. That’s selflessness from the ultimate team man and team mate. .

Spud, you were a beautiful man who I cared about deeply.

You were a great mate who I unashamedly loved. You were and will always be a loyal, loving, supporting and encouraging friend who I will love forever.

I’ll miss our chats, our deep conversations, the practical jokes, your infectious laugh, your spirit and your passion.

I’m so proud of you, Spud. I’m proud of how hard you fought. I’m proud of how hard you worked to overcome these insidious conditions the first time around. And I’m incredibly proud of you for helping countless others.

We may have lost this battle, Spud, but my promise to you, Anita, and your three beautiful girls is we won’t lose the war.

There are two things that I will cherish most, Spud. The first was your love. Whether it was an emoji loveheart at the end of a text, or you saying ‘I love you Schwatter’ at the end of one of our many phone calls, and the second was your trust. You trusted me to listen. You trusted me to talk. You trusted me to ask for help. And you trusted me to allow me to offer my support.

Spud, what I’d give to have one more conversation, brother. I’d tell you like I always did. It’s okay  mate. We’ve been here before. We’ll get through this together. And we’ll do it again. I believe in you brother. So let’s keep doing the work.

Until then my beautiful friend, you’re free to fly with the angels. I love you Spud.

Wayne Schwass is a former champion AFL footballer and a mental health advocate for PukaUp. For urgent assistance please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (24 hour counselling, information and referrals) or the Beyond Blue Support Service 1300 22 4636.

For Allan Jeans: 'His scallywags, he would call us', by John Kennedy Jnr - 2011

20 July 2011, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Jolimont, Melbourne, Australia

In the pre-season of 1981, the President Ron Cook, John Kennedy Snr & the committee made the decision to appoint Allan Jeans as the senior coach of the Hawthorn Football Club. .

No-one could have imagined the profound affect that decision was to have on the club and in particular those that worked within it.

Our perception and that of the football public was built on a media profile that had preceded Yab’s appointment at Hawthorn. A man who was very conservative, dour in his demeanor and one who gave the impression he loved sucking lemons for fun!

It wasn’t until you got to really know this man that the real Yabby Jeans was discovered.

Our first meeting as a playing group was in the Hawthorn Social Club. It wasn’t a long extended meeting on what lay ahead over the summer or any issue surrounding our poor performance of the previous season, but rather a short, to the point, quietly spoken message, that we as players did not have to like Allan Jeans but (with a crescendo in his voice) – “You must respect the position I hold at this football club! I will need to earn your respect & you mine, but I demand you respect this position I hold as coach!”

It set the tone for what was to be the most successful era the Hawthorn Football Club had experienced.

Yab’s wisdom and knowledge was profound. He extended this talent to his players on many occasions, usually accompanied by a real life analogy.

He would stress continually that in football and life you cannot have freedom without responsibility. That the freedom to say and do things must be accompanied with a responsibility in what you say and do. “You cannot have one without the other!” he would roar

When we found ourselves languishing out of form ,or having to make a decision on our football or even a personal matter , he would often quote the little boy who comes to a crossroad and doesn’t know where to go as the sign post had fallen over . A man nearby sees the confused boy and asks him what’s the problem. The boy replies, “I have come to the crossroad and the sign is broken. What will I do?” The old man says, “that’s easy son, pick up the sign post, point the sign to where you have come from and then you will know where you are going.”

Or

If you see a man at the top of the mountain you have to remember he wasn’t bloody put there. He had to work to get there!!

and

Of course his famous 1989 half time address of the mother who needed to pay the price for her son’s new shoes if she wanted them to last. She had to pay the price!

Then there was his renowned sense of humour.

This was no more evident than his explanation to us at a meeting one night as to the appointment of his great friend George Stone as runner.

“Well it’s like this – Napoleon during his times of war needed a messenger to get information to the troops. He decided to select the dumbest individual in his army because he believed if he could get the message through to him then it was more likely the message would get to the troops correctly. I have chosen George as our runner.”

In discussions with my father he recalls coming back from Geelong one day with Yab after being beaten by Tommy Hafey’s Cats. A long trip back with plenty of time to think. Yab walked in the front door of his house to Mary lightheartedly calling out from another room – “How did you go Allan – Tommy put it over you did he?” “Now Mary, I’m going back out that door and come back in and we are not going to talk football!!”

Prior to a game at Waverley Park in the mid-eighties he was wandering through the rooms with football manager Johnny Hook as we were all being rubbed down by the trainers. These trainers, the likes of Bob Yeoman, Max Deacon, Peter the Pear (to name a few) were all large men dressed in white pants half way down their backside , white singlets smudged with liniment and all bearing ample stomachs. They also doubled up as water boys. With the ever increasing speed at which the modern game was being played it became apparent to Yab that things would need to change. “Hooky, have a look at these water boys, they will need to be camels to do this job.”

We were playing Richmond at the MCG. The Tigers were causing us all sorts of trouble as the siren went for quarter time. As we huddled around Yab for his quarter time address, he swung into action roaring at us, in an attempt to snap us out of our lull. He suddenly turned his attention to Russell Morris, nicknamed FLY. And said “Fly – you are playing on a guy that has taken 15 marks in his entire career and half of those he has just taken on you in that quarter – LIFT-SON!!!’

There are so many stories .We all have one.

Yab loved his players. His scallywags he would call us.

In public he would defend us to the hilt, even after our worst performances he would never criticize us individually. Under enormous scrutiny from the press he would only say how well the opposition played and that they won in most positions and made the least number of mistakes. We as players appreciated and respected him for his stance on this, however, behind closed doors it was often a different story!

He would let us know in no uncertain terms with his booming voice what he thought of our performance. His piercing blue eyes would scan the room and phases such as “Blokes on ego trips and lairizing” “You know who you are” … “If the cap fits, wear it”… and “Don’t worry about me, I go out there and defend ya to the press, I’ll make something up for you! You just make sure you have fun tonight!!! Don’t let that performance get in the way of ya dancing- oh no we can’t have that. Hope ya beer tastes sour… Off you go!!!”

As a coach he once again displayed two faces. One publicly that presented a very old fashioned way of doing things but in private he was an innovator. He pioneered what’s now called ‘the running game’. He broke the game down for us in simple terms. “We have it, they have it or it’s in dispute.” We were drilled in what to do in all three areas. Our training was geared towards achieving the best results in all three areas. He did not adhere to the theory of long training sessions. He was a great believer in keeping us at the club for as little time as was necessary to ensure we didn’t become too bored in our surroundings.

As players we enjoyed the success that blended through the years.

He had an extraordinary ability to manage people, in particular his players.

In fact it was his greatest asset. Always fairly and thoughtfully.

I remember entering the club room doors and running into a player who Yab had just told that his services were no longer required. He went on to tell me that he was very disappointed but understood that Yabby had to make the hard decisions and that – wait for it - he felt sorry for Yab!!! I marveled as to how he was able to have this individual think this way

I stand here today to represent all the many people who have had an association with Yabby during his time at Hawthorn. In particular the players and match committee who were lucky enough to share in an amazing period of success.

This success in football terms is well documented.

What perhaps is less tangible, but in many ways the greatest legacy Yabby leaves us, is the undoubted impact he has had on our day to day lives.

The lessons he taught us to be successful on and off the field have been used by each and every one of us at various times since we left behind those halcyon days at Hawthorn.

The benefits of persistence, a sense of responsibility, commitment to family, how to win with humility, how to lose with dignity, without excuses. How to manage people and how to lead, to name just a few.

Yab always used to say that myths and images are built up about people, that some people and some things are not always what they seem.

There was no myth about Yab

Certainly an image had been created of him publicly but for those of us that were lucky enough to have known him well, he was the real deal.

A man of great character, integrity and honesty.

A man who did things the way he wanted.

He was not influenced by stereotypes that were often portrayed in the media.

He did not fall into that trap, but dealt with us all…players, club and media…in his own way.

I suspect that as time passes and AFL football and the Hawthorn Football Club continues to evolve, my generation will be talking of this man in similar tones to how my father’s generation talk of the great Norm Smith – in revered terms – arguably this is already occurring.

It’s difficult to put into words the varying degrees of influence that Yab had on our lives.

But in reflecting over the years, it would be fair to say, that for most of my teammates and I, he, outside of our parents had the biggest influence on the way we operate today

Men such as Allan Jeans are a rarity and we will be forever grateful that we were in the right place at the right time to enjoy one of the greatest characters that we will ever meet. He leaves us all with wonderful memories and achievements.

On behalf of all us Scallywags Yab –

Our Sincerest thanks and goodbye, our leader and Friend.

For Robert Byrd: 'There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians', by Bill Clinton -

2 July 2010, Charleston, West Virginia, USA

Thank you very much. Governor, all the members of Senator Byrd's family, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Madam Speaker, Congressman Rahall, and all the House members here, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, the senators; thank you, Senator Rockefeller and thank you, Vicki Kennedy.

I'd also like to thank all the people here who at the time of his passing or ever worked for Robert Byrd who helped him to succeed for the people of West Virginia. I thank them.

And, I want to thank the Martin Luther King [Jr.] Male Chorus. They gave us a needed break from all these politicians talking up here.

I want to say first that I come here to speak for two members my family. Hillary wanted to be here today and she paid her respects to Senator Byrd as he lay in state in the United States Senate before making a trip on behalf of our country to Central and Eastern Europe.

I am grateful to Bob Byrd for many things, but one thing that no one has given enough attention to in my opinion today is that while he always wanted to be the best senator, and he always wanted to be the longest-serving senator, he wanted every other senator to be the best senator that he or she could be. And he helped Hillary a lot when she came to represent the people of New York. I am forever grateful for that.

Now I know this, everybody else has canonizing Senator Byrd. I'd like to humanize him a little bit, 'cause I think it makes it more interesting and makes his service all the more important. First of all, most people had to go all the way to Washington to become awed by -- you might even say intimidated by -- Robert Byrd.

Not me. I had advance experience before I got elected President.

'Cause the first time I ever ran for office, at the opening of campaign season in Arkansas, just below the Waccamaw and Ozark mountains, which once were connected to the Appalachians, we had this big rally. And the year that I started, don't you know, Robert Byrd was the speaker. 1974, April, I'll never forget it. It was a beautiful spring night. And he gave one of those stem-winding speeches. And then he got up and he played the fiddle, and the crowd went crazy. And you know, in 1974, in a place like Arkansas or West Virginia, playing the fiddle was a whole lot better for your politics than playing a saxophone.

So I am completely intimidated. And then all the candidates get to speak. They're all limited to four or five minutes. Some went over. All the candidates for governor and every state officer. And then the members of the -- people running for the House of Representatives, there were five of us. We were dead last. And I drew the short straw. I was dead last among them.

By the time I got up to speak, it had been so long since Robert Byrd spoke, he was hungry again. And I realized, in my awed state, I couldn't do that well. So I decided the only chance I had to be remembered was to give the shortest speech. I spoke for 80 seconds. And I won the primary. And I owed it to Robert Byrd.

Now, when I was elected President, I knew that one of the things I needed to do before I took the oath of office was go to the Senate and pay my respects to Senator Byrd. In 1974, when I first met him, he had already been the leading authority on the institutional history of the Senate and the Senate rules for some years, and he certainly was by the time I was about to become President. So I did that. And I got a copy of his history of the Senate, and his history of the Roman Senate. And I read them. And they're, I'm proud to say, still on my bookshelves in my office in Harlem in New York City today because I was so profoundly impressed.

Now, Robert Byrd was not without a sense of humor. For example, I was once ragging him I -- about all the federal money he was hauling down to West Virginia. And it was bad for -- I mean, I was from Arkansas. We weren't much better off than you. We weren't any better off than you. And every friend I had in Arkansas said, he's just a senator. You're sitting in the White House. We don't get squat compared to what they get. What is the matter with you? I was getting the living daylights beat out of me about once a week.

So I said to him, early in my first term, I say, "You know, senator, if you pave every single inch of West Virginia, it's going to be much harder to mine coal." And he smiled, and he said, "The Constitution does not prohibit humble servants from delivering whatever they can to their constituents."

And -- but let me say something seriously. He knew people who were elected to represent states and regions and political philosophies. We're flesh and blood people, which means they would never be perfect. He knew they were subject to passion and anger. And when you make a decision, that's important when you're mad, there's about an 80 percent chance you'll make a mistake. And that's why he thought the rules and the institution and the Constitution were so important. And he put them before everything, even what he wanted.

I'll never forget when we were trying to pass health care reform in 1993 and '94, Senator Byrd was a passionate supporter of the efforts we were making, just as he was of the efforts that President Obama has made. But we only had 55 votes, and we could not defeat a filibuster. And so I said, "Well, Senator, won't you just let me stick this on the budget -- 'cause it's the only thing you can't filibuster." That violated something called the "Byrd Rule."

They knew he was running the Senate. They just go ahead and named the rule for him. So the -- and -- and I said, "You know, you really ought to suspend this, because the budget is going to be bankrupt if we don't quit spending so much money on health care, and we can't do it if we offer health care to everybody." And he looked at me and he said, "That argument might have worked when you were a professor in law school. But you know as well as I do, it is substantively wrong." He wouldn't do it.

Then in his defense, he turned right around and he worked his heart out to break that filibuster, and he was trying till the very end not to get me to give up the fight, because he thought if we just tried, we could find some errant Republican who would make a mistake and vote with us. He would never give it up. The point I want to make is, he made a decision against his own interests, his own conviction, his own fight. And that's one reason I thank God that he could go in his wheelchair in his most significant vote at the end of his service in the Senate and vote for health care reform and make it a real law.

Now, I will say this. If you want to get along with Senator Byrd, and you were having one of these constitutional differences, it was better for your long-term health if you lost the battle. I won the battle over the line-item veto. Oh, he hated the line-item veto. He hated the line-item veto with a passion that most people in West Virginia reserve for blood feuds, like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

That's -- you would have thought the line-item veto had been killing members of the Byrd family for 100 years. It made his blood boil. You've never been lectured by anybody -- Nick Rahall said that. Till Bob Byrd has lectured you, you have never known a lecture. I regret that every new President and every new member of Congress will never have the experience of being dressed down by Senator Robert Byrd. And I'll be darned if he wasn't right about that too -- the Supreme Court rule for him instead of me on the climb -- on the line-item veto. All right?

The point I want to make here is a serious one. Yeah, he did as good a job for you as he could. As he -- far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as too much for West Virginia. But the one thing he would not do, even for you, is violate his sense of what was required to maintain the integrity of the Constitution and the integrity of the United States' Senate so that America could go on when we were wrong, as well as right. So we would never be dependent on always being right.

Let me just say, finally, it is common place to say that he was a self-made man, that he set an example of lifetime learning. He was the first, and as far as I know, maybe the only member of Congress to get a law degree while serving in the Congress. But he did more learning than that. And all you've got to do is look around this crowd today and listen to that music to remember.

There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers -- and I read a bunch of them -- and they mentioned that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan. And what does that mean? I'll tell what you it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollers of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done, and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does.

There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians. And so, yeah, I'm glad he got a law degree. But by the time he got a law degree, he already knew more than 99 percent of the lawyers in America, anyway. The degree he got in human nature and human wisdom, the understanding that came to him by serving you and serving in the Senate, that the people from the hills and hollers of West Virginia, in their patriotism, they provided a disproportionate newspaper of the soldiers who fought for our independence from England. And they have provided a disproportionate number of the soldiers in every single solitary conflict since that time, whether they agreed or disagreed with the policy.

The family feeling, the clan loyalty, the fanatic independence,. the desire for a hand up, not a hand out, the willingness to fight when put into a corner -- that has often got the people from whom Senator Byrd and I sprang in trouble, because we didn't keep learning and growing and understanding that all the African-Americans who have been left out and left down and lived for going to church and lived to see their kids get a better deal, and have their children sign up for the military when they're needed -- they're just like we are.

That all the Irish Catholics, the Scotch Irish used to fight -- everybody -- the Italian immigrants, the people from Latin America who have come to our shores, the people from all over the world; everybody who's ever been let down and left out and ignored and abused, or who's got a terrible family story -- we're all alike. That is the real education Robert Byrd got, and he lived it every day of his life in the United States Senate to make America a better, stronger place.

So not long after, maybe right before Senator Byrd lost Erma, I said in a fleeting world of instant food and attention deficit disorder, he had proved and so had she that some people really do love each other till death do them part. I've been thinking about that today, thinking maybe we ought to amend the marriage vows and say that till death to us part and till death do bring us back together.

I -- I admired Senator Byrd. I liked him. I was grateful to him. I loved our arguments. And I loved our common causes. But most of all, I loved it that he had had the wisdom to believe that America was more important than any one individual, any one President, any one senator -- that the rules, the institutions, the system had to enable us to keep forming "a more perfect union" through ups and downs and good times and bad.

He has left us a precious gift. He fought a good fight. He kept the faith. He has finished his course, but not ours. If we really would honor him today and every day, we must remember his lessons, and live by them.

Thank you.

for David Bowie: 'You have brought out the freak in everyone', CFDA Fashion Awards, by Tilda Swinton

7 June 2016, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City. USA

Dear Dave,

The CFDA have the great good sense and elegance to tip their caps at you this year.

There's pretty much no year out of the last forty that this would not have been a good idea. But this time around, it feels like an apt opportunity, given this stage in the proceedings, to remind us all how very much a part of us you always were and always will be.

At the request of your beautiful Missus, I've come to collect it for her - for you.

These kind people - the fanciest fashion people on the planet - are giving you their highest prize - their directors' tribute - to honour and to thank you for all the shapes you’ve thrown, from start to finish, through all your years, golden and otherwise, all your changes, ever moving forward, all your colours, all your magic, all your vim and vigour, all your glory, all ways and always.

You checked out early and we are still finding things you left in the drawers and looking for a forwarding address

But you are still hanging signs in the sky, in the trees, for us and we are so grateful for every one.

We want to tell you that we miss you but how very happy we all are that you came by... And that we are getting used to resting on your stardust in your absence.

Once upon a time you gave us a freak for freaks: now and forever more, in our missing you (and this is a good thing), you have brought out the freak in everyone.

You tipped us that wink from the first: one man's freak is another man's free.

Difference and change are all we ever have to rely upon, and always were.

Thank you, chum, for brightening our horizon. For inspiring and exhilarating and enlightening our times. How lucky we are who turned up since you were first here. Thank you for your happiness and your eternal Bona-ness and zhoosh.

You are our hero. Forever and ever.

Everyone says hi.

Love,

Your Tilly

for Jim Stynes: 'There's never been anyone like Jim Stynes and there never will be', by Garry Lyon - 2012

2 April 2012, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

Big Jimmy would have loved this.

He thrived on a big crowd. If he was here, he'd have us all standing up, waving our hands above our heads, and singing, and turning to the person next to you giving them hugs and shoulder massages. It's the sort of weird stuff he did and it took us a long time to get our head around it.

He loved to take people outside their comfort zone, to get them to do things that they didn't think they were capable of, which is not surprising really when you strip it all back to the very start of his extraordinary journey.

How else is a young lad form Ireland arrive on the doorsteps of the Melbourne footy club, another world away in very sense of the word, if he wasn't prepared to step out of his own comfort zone?

It was to be a consistent theme throughout his time here. That he would struggle initially was inevitable. That he would eventually fail was likely. That he eventually debuted as a Melbourne Footy Club player in 1987 was admirable. That he was the best and most dominant Australian Rules footballer in the country four years later, was to begin to understand and appreciate the sort of athlete and person we were dealing with.

Consistency was a cornerstone of Jim's footy career. He was consistently our best preseason performer, defying logic as he powered up mountains, leaving us all in his wake. There's enough team mates of ours here to know that he was consistently our worst in season trainer, as he hobbled around the training track from Monday to Friday, attempting to overcome all manner of injuries from the previous game. He was a horrible trainer during the season.

And then he was consistently our best performer when it mattered most, as he wheeled himself from contest to contest, game after game, year after year. So I wanted Jim to be consistent today, and he would be disappointed if I didn't take the chance to have a laugh at his expense. It's what I enjoyed doing most with him. So here's some home truths.

If he wasn't tight with his money, he was very careful with it. You only had to look at the way he dressed to realise he didn't spend money on a wardrobe. I've never seen a man get more excited about a club issue of a pair of runners every year. Mainly to discard last year's and move into the new fashion.

Which is why recently he turned up at our blazer presentation night, only a ... You know where I'm going with this Sammy ... a week or two ago, and he was crook and his eyesight was failing him. And I realised how crook he was because the raffle tickets were being handed around. Jimmy wasn't a big raffle ticket buyer, he was a $5 man. And I saw him and Sam arguing, having a blue over the envelope, and there was 20s and 10s and 50s flying everywhere and I thought, "Shit, Jimmy's crook. He's going for a 50." And it wasn't until two days later I spoke with Sammy and she said no, even with his failing eyesight, she saw Sam put a 50 in, and he was diving in to try and get 45 out.

He wasn't opposed to stretching the boundaries in the pursuit of victory either, and at the risk of starting an international incident, and I know there's a strong Irish contingent here, I've got to get this story off my chest. Some of my favourite times with him were in the International Rules series where I was coaching and he was assistant. And they were tense times, and we were always in the back of my mind wondered whether he was a double agent or not. And we got to the game and Croke Park, 75-80,000 people there. Not sure who you were barracking for either Brian.

And I said to him, "Jim, get the walkie talkie sorted out. Make sure we've got two way down to the bench."

And he said, "Yeah okay, okay." So he's fiddling around with it, trying to get onto the right channel and all of a sudden he said, "Shut up, listen." And there was a cross reference and we logged into the Irish coach's box.

And I said, "Jim, you can't do that." And he said, "Shut up." So for the first five minutes, we listened to the coach of the Irish team make his moves, and we trumped them and we eventually went on and won the game, and I reckon the next day I heard or read somewhere they said the Australians were well prepared, they anticipated every move the Irish team made. Damn right they did, because Jimmy was listening to the coach all the way through.

So he was a bit deceptive. He didn't lose his temper much, but he did on that day. The game was really close and it got towards the end of the match, and we were a few points down and he was in charge of our whiteboard, with all the magnets and the men around it. And someone did something wrong and I smashed the table in frustration, stuff went flying everywhere but I kept watching the game. It was about 30 seconds to go and I said, "Jim, who's on number 20?" Nothing. So I was getting a bit agitated at this stage, so I said, "Jim, who's on number 20?" And there was still nothing. I said, "Jim, if you don't tell me-" and he cut me off and he said, "Well how to fook do I know? He's crawling round on the floor trying to pick the magnets up." They'd been flying everywhere. Fook's an Irish word for flaming, so we're okay with that.

That was about it. That was about it. It's all I got. The truth is finding fault in anything he did was a fruitless exercise. I sat down and wrote a list of words that best describe him as a footballer: consistent, reliable, dependable, trustworthy, honest, strong, durable, sincere, loyal, courageous, caring and resilient. They're wonderful qualities to possess in a footballer. They're even more significant qualities to possess as a man. And what I find most amazing of all, is that all the kids from around the world we could have attracted in the game when Melbourne took the audacious steps of looking beyond our shores in the albeit unlikely hope of unearthing a footballer, we found him. Jim Stynes. And as a result, we knew never to question the boundaries of what one man is capable of achieving on the playing field, but also to never question the ability of the same man to have an impact away from it. There's never been anyone like Jim Stynes and there never will be, which is why we loved him, and we miss him so much today.

for John McCain: 'My father was a great man', by Meghan McCain - 2018

1 September 2018, Washingtoin Cathedral, Washington DC, USA

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it." When Ernest Hemingway's Robert Jordan, at the close For Whom the Bell Tolls lies wounded, waiting for his last fight, these are among his final thoughts. My father had every reason to think the world was an awful place. my father had every reason to think the world was not worth fighting for. My father had every reason to think the world was worth leaving. He did not think any of those things. Like the hero of his favorite book, John McCain took the opposite view: You had to have a lot of luck to have had such a good life.

I am here before you today saying the words I have never wanted to say giving the speech I have never wanted to give. Feeling the loss I have never wanted to feel. My father is gone, John Sidney McCain III was many things. He was a sailor, he was an aviator, he was a husband, he was a warrior, he was a prisoner, he was a hero, he was a congressman, he was a senator, he was nominee for President of the United States. These are all of the titles and roles of a life that's been well lived. They're not the greatest of his titles nor the most important of his roles.

He was a great man. We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice, those that live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.

He was a great fire who burned bright. In the past few days, my family and I have heard from so many of those Americans who stood in the warmth and light of his fire and found it illuminated what's best about them. We are grateful to them because they're grateful to him. A few have resented that fire for the light it cast upon them for the truth it revealed about their character, but my father never cared what they thought and even that small number still have the opportunity as long as they draw breath to live up to the example of John McCain.

My father was a great man. He was a great warrior. He was a great American. I admired him for all of these things. but I love him because he was a great father. My father knew what it was like to grow up in the shadow of greatness, he did just as his father had done before him. He was the son of a great admiral who was also the son of a great admiral. When it came time for the third John Sidney McCain to be a man, he had no choice but to walk in the same path. He had to become a sailor. He had to go to war. He had to have his shot at becoming a great admiral as they also had done. The past of his father and grandfather led my father to the Hanoi Hilton. This is where all of the biography, campaign literature say he showed his character, his patriotism, his faith, his endurance in the worst of possible circumstances. This is where we learned who John McCain truly was. And all is very true except for the last part.

Today I want to share with you where I found out who John McCain truly was and wasn't in the Hilton. It wasn't in the cockpit of a fast and lethal fighter jet or on the campaign trail. John McCain was in all those places, but the best of him was somewhere else, the best of John McCain, the greatest of his titles and the most important of his roles was as a father.

for John McCain: 'Character is destiny. John had character', by Joe Biden - 2018

1 September 2018, Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC, USA

My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain. I have had the dubious honor over the years of giving some eulogies for fine women and men that I’ve admired. But, Lindsey, this one’s hard.

The three men who spoke before me I think captured John, different aspects of John in a way that only someone close to him could understand. But the way I look at it, the way I thought about it, was that I always thought of John as a brother. We had a hell of a lot of family fights. We go back a long way. I was a young United States Senator. I got elected when I was 29. I had the dubious distinction of being put on the formulations committee, which the next youngest person was 14 years older than me. And I spent a lot of time traveling the world because I was assigned responsibility, my colleagues in the Senate knew I was chairman of the European Affairs subcommittee, so I spent a lot of time at NATO and then the Soviet Union.

Along came a guy a couple of years later, a guy I knew of, admired from afar, your husband, who had been a prisoner of war, who had endured enormous, enormous pain and suffering. And demonstrated the code, the McCain code. People don't think much about it today, but imagine having already known the pain you were likely to endure, and being offered the opportunity to go home, but saying no. As his son can tell you in the Navy, last one in, last one out.

So I knew of John. and John became the Navy liaison officer in the United States Senate. There's an office, then it used to be on the basement floor, of members of the military who are assigned to senators when they travel abroad to meet with heads of state or other foreign dignitaries. And John had been recently released from the HanoI Hilton, a genuine hero, and he became the Navy liaison. For some reason we hit it off in the beginning. We were both full of dreams and ambitions and an overwhelming desire to make the time we had there worthwhile. To try to do the right thing. To think about how we could make things better for the country we loved so much.

John and I ended up traveling every time I went anywhere. I took John with me or John took me with him. we were in China, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, England, Turkey, all over the world. Tens of thousands of miles. And we would sit on that plane and late into the night, when everyone else was asleep, and just talk. Getting to know one another. We'd talk about family, we'd talk about politics, we'd talk about international relations. we'd talk about promise, the promise of America. Because we were both cockeyed optimists and believe there's not a single thing, beyond the capacity of this country. I mean, for real, not a single thing.

And, when you get to know another woman or man, you begin to know their hopes and their fears, you get to know their family even before you meet them, you get to know how they feel about important things. We talked about everything except captivity and the loss of my family which had just occurred, my wife and daughter, the only two things we didn't talk about.

But, I found that it wasn't too long into John's duties that Jill and I got married. Jill is here with me today. Five years, I had been a single dad and no man deserves one great love, let alone two. And I met Jill. It changed my life. She fell in love with him and he with her. He'd always call her, as Lindsey would travel with her, Jilly. Matter of fact, when they got bored being with me on these trips, I remember in Greece, he said, ‘Why don't I take Jill for dinner?’ Later, I would learn they are at a cafe at the port and he has her dancing on top of a cement table drinking uzo. Not a joke. Jilly. Right, Jilly?

But we got to know each other well and he loved my son Beau and my son Hunt. As a young man, he came up to my house and he came up to Wilmington and out of this grew a great friendship that transcended whatever political differences we had or later developed because, above all, above all, we understood the same thing. All politics is personal. It's all about trust. I trusted John with my life and I would and I think he would trust me with his. And as our life progressed, we learned more, there are times when life can be so cruel, pain so blinding it's hard to see anything else.

The disease that took John's life took our mutual friend’s, Teddy [Kennedy]’s life, the exact same disease nine years ago, a couple days ago, and three years ago, took my beautiful son Beau's life. It's brutal. It's relentless. It's unforgiving. And it takes so much from those we love and from the families who love them that in order to survive, we have to remember how they lived, not how they died. I carry with me an image of Beau, sitting out in a little lake we live on, starting a motor on an old boat and smiling away. Not the last days. I’m sure Vickie Kennedy has her own image, looking, seeing Teddy looking so alive in a sailboat, out in the Cape. For the family, for the family, you will all find your own images, whether it's remembering his smile, his laugh or that touch in the shoulder or running his hand down your cheek. Or, just feeling like someone is looking, turn and see him just smiling at you, from a distance, just looking at you. Or when you saw the pure joy the moment he was about to take the stage on the Senate floor and start a fight.

God, he loved it. so, to Cindy, the kids, Doug, Andy, Cindy, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, Bridget, and I know she's not here, but to Mrs. McCain, we know how difficult it is to bury a child, Mrs. McCain. My heart goes out to you. And I know right now, the pain you all are feeling is so sharp and so hollowing. And John's absence is all consuming, for all of you right now. It's like being sucked into a black hole inside your chest. And it's frightening. But, I know something else, unfortunately, from experience. There's nothing anyone can say or do to ease the pain right now. But I pray, I pray you take some comfort knowing that because you shared John with all of us, your whole life, the world now shares with you in the ache of John's death.

Look around this magnificent church. Look what you saw coming from the state capitol yesterday. it's hard to stand there but part of it, part of it was at least it was for me with Beau, standing in the state capitol, you knew. It was genuine. It was deep. He touched so many lives. I’ve gotten calls not just because people knew we were friends, not just from people around the country, but leaders around the world calling. Meghan, I'm getting all these sympathy letters. I mean, hundreds of them, and tweets.

Character is destiny. John had character. While others will miss his leadership, passion, even his stubbornness, you are going to miss that hand on your shoulder. Family, you are going to miss the man, faithful man as he was, who you knew would literally give his life for you. And for that there's no balm but time. Time and your memories of a life lived well and lived fully.

But I make you a promise. I promise you, the time will come that what's going to happen is six months will go by and everybody is going to think, well, it's passed. But you are going to ride by that field or smell that fragrance or see that flashing image. You are going to feel like you did the day you got the news. But you know you are going to make it. The image of your dad, your husband, your friend. It crosses your mind and a smile comes to your lips before a tear to your eye. That's who you know. I promise you, I give you my word, I promise you, this I know. The day will come. That day will come.

You know, I’m sure if my former colleagues who worked with John, I'm sure there's people who said to you not only now, but the last ten years, ‘Explain this guy to me.’ Right? Explain this guy to me. Because, as they looked at him, in one sense they admired him, in one sense, the way things changed so much in America, they look add him as if John came from another age, lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated courage, integrity, duty, were alive. That was obvious how John lived his life. The truth is, John's code was ageless, is ageless. When you talked earlier, Grant, you talked about values. It wasn't about politics with John. He could disagree on substance, but the underlying values that animated everything John did, everything he was, come to a different conclusion. He'd part company with you, if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect, knowing this project is bigger than yourself.

John's story is an American story. It's not hyperbole. it's the American story. grounded in respect and decency. basic fairness. the intolerance through the abuse of power. Many of you travel the world, look how the rest of the world looks at us. They look at us a little naive, so fair, so decent. We are the naive Americans. that's who we are. That's who John was. He could not stand the abuse of power. wherever he saw it, in whatever form, in whatever ways. He loved basic values, fairness, honesty, dignity, respect, giving hate no safe harbor, leaving no one behind and understanding Americans were part of something much bigger than ourselves.

With John, it was a value set that was neither selfish nor self-serving. John understood that America was first and foremost, an idea. Audacious and risky, organized around not tribe but ideals. Think of how he approached every issue. The ideals that Americans rallied around for 200 years, the ideals of the world has prepared you. Sounds corny. We hold these truths self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain rights. To John, those words had meaning, as they have for every great patriot who's ever served this country. We both loved the Senate. The proudest years of my life were being a United States Senator. I was honored to be Vice President, but a United States Senator. We both lamented, watching it change. During the long debates in the '80s and '90s, I would go sit next to John, next to his seat or he would come on the Democratic side and sit next to me. I'm not joking. We'd sit there and talk to each other. I came out to see John, we were reminiscing around it. It was '96, about to go to the caucus. We both went into our caucus and coincidentally, we were approached by our caucus leaders with the same thing. Foe, it doesn't look good, you sitting next to John all the time. I swear to God. same thing was said to John in your caucus.

That's when things began to change for the worse in America in the Senate. That's when it changed. What happened was, at those times, it was always appropriate to challenge another Senator's judgment, but never appropriate to challenge their motive. When you challenge their motive, it's impossible to get to go. If I say you are going this because you are being paid off or you are doing it because you are not a good Christian or this, that, or the other thing, it's impossible to reach consensus. Think about in your personal lives. All we do today is attack the oppositions of both parties, their motives, not the substance of their argument. This is the mid-'90s. it began to go downhill from there. The last day John was on the Senate floor, what was he fighting to do? He was fighting to restore what you call regular order, just start to treat one another again, like we used to.

The Senate was never perfect, John, you know that. we were there a long time together. I watched Teddy Kennedy and James O. Eastland fight like hell on civil rights and then go have lunch together, down in the Senate dining room. John wanted to see, “regular order” writ large. Get to know one another. You know, John and I were both amused and I think Lindsey was at one of these events where John and I received two prestigious awards where the last year I was vice president and one immediately after, for our dignity and respect we showed to one another, we received an award for civility in public life. Allegheny College puts out this award every year for bipartisanship. John and I looked at each and said, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ No, not a joke. I said to Senator Flake, that's how it's supposed to be. We get an award? I’m serious. Think about this. Getting an award for your civility. Getting an award for bipartisanship. Classic John, Allegheny College, hundreds of people, got the award and the Senate was in session. He spoke first and, as he walked off the stage and I walked on, he said, Joe, don't take it personally, but I don't want to hear what the hell you have to say, and left.

One of John's major campaign people is now with the senate with the governor of Ohio, was on [TV] this morning and I happened to watch it. He said that Biden and McCain had a strange relationship, they always seemed to have each other's back. Whenever I was in trouble, John was the first guy there. I hope I was there for him. We never hesitate to give each other advice. He would call me in the middle of the campaign, he’d say, ‘What the hell did you say that for? you just screwed up, Joe.’ I'd occasionally call him.

Look, I've been thinking this week about why John's death hit the country so hard. yes, he was a long-serving senator with a remarkable record. Yes, he was a two-time presidential candidate who captured the support and imagination of the American people and, yes, John was a war hero, demonstrated extraordinary courage. I think of John and my son when I think of Ingersoll’s words when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate and honor scorns to compromise with death, that is heroism. Everybody knows that about John. But I don't think it fully explains why the country has been so taken by John's passing. I think it's something more intangible.

I think it's because they knew John believed so deeply and so passionately in the soul of America. He made it easier for them to have confidence and faith in America. His faith in the core values of this nation made them somehow feel it more genuinely themselves. his conviction that we, as a country, would never walk away from the sacrifice generations of Americans have made to defend liberty and freedom and dignity around the world. It made average Americans proud of themselves and their country. His belief, and it was deep, that Americans can do anything, withstand anything, achieve anything. It was unflagging and ultimately reassuring. This man believed that so strongly. His capacity that we truly are the world's last best hope, the beacon to the world. There are principles and ideals more than ourselves worth sacrificing for and if necessary, dying for. Americans saw how he lived his life that way. and they knew the truth of what he was saying. I just think he gave Americans confidence.

John was a hero, his character, courage, honor, integrity. I think it is understated when they say optimism. That's what made John special. Made John a giant among all of us. In my view, John didn't believe that America's future and faith rested on heroes. we used to talk about, he understood what I hope we all remember, heroes didn't build this country. Ordinary people being given half a chance are capable of doing extraordinary things, extraordinary things. John knew ordinary Americans understood each of us has a duty to defend, integrity, dignity and birthright of every child. He carried it. Good communities are built by thousands of acts of decency that Americans, as I speak today, show each other every single day deep in the DNA of this nation's soul lies a flame that was lit over 200 years ago. Each of us carries with us and each one of us has the capacity, the responsibility and we can screw up the courage to ensure it does not extinguish. There's a thousand little things that make us different.

Bottom line was, I think John believed in us. I think he believed in the American people. not just all the preambles, he believed until the American people, all 325 million of us. Even though John is no longer with us, he left us clear instructions. ‘Believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here.’ Close to the last thing John said took the whole nation, as he knew he was about to depart. That's what he wanted America to understand. not to build his legacy. he wanted America reminded, to understand. I think John's legacy is going to continue to inspire and challenge generations of leaders as they step forward and John McCain’s America is not over. it is hyperbole, it's not over. It's not close.

Cindy, John owed so much of what he was to you. you were his ballast. when I was with you both, I could see how he looked at you. Jill is the one, when we were in Hawaii, we first met you there and he kept staring at you. Jill said, go up and talk to her. Doug, Andy, Sydney, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, Bridget, you may not have had your father as long as you would like, but you got from him everything you need to pursue your own dreams. To follow the course of your own spirit. You are a living legacy, not hyperbole. You are a living legacy and proof of John McCain’s success.

Now John is going to take his rightful place in a long line of extraordinary leaders in this nation's history. Who in their time and in their way stood for freedom and stood for liberty and have made the American story the most improbable and most hopeful and most enduring story on earth. I know John said he hoped he played a small part in that story. John, you did much more than that, my friend. To paraphrase Shakespeare, we shall not see his like again.

for James Baldwin: 'Jimmy. You crowned us', by Toni Morrison - 1988

20 December 1987, published New York Times, USA

Jimmy, there is too much to think about you, and too much to feel. The difficulty is your life refuses summation - it always did - and invites contemplation instead. Like many of us left here I thought I knew you. Now I discover that in your company it is myself I know. That is the astonishing gift of your art and your friendship: You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish. We are like Hall Montana* watching ''with new wonder'' his brother saints, knowing the song he sang is us, ''He is us.''

I never heard a single command from you, yet the demands you made on me, the challenges you issued to me, were nevertheless unmistakable, even if unenforced: that I work and think at the top of my form, that I stand on moral ground but know that ground must be shored up by mercy, that ''the world is before [ me ] and [ I ] need not take it or leave it as it was when [ I ] came in.''

Well, the season was always Christmas with you there and, like one aspect of that scenario, you did not neglect to bring at least three gifts. You gave me a language to dwell in, a gift so perfect it seems my own invention. I have been thinking your spoken and written thoughts for so long I believed they were mine. I have been seeing the world through your eyes for so long, I believed that clear clear view was my own. Even now, even here, I need you to tell me what I am feeling and how to articulate it. So I have pored again through the 6,895 pages of your published work to acknowledge the debt and thank you for the credit. No one possessed or inhabited language for me the way you did. You made American English honest - genuinely international. You exposed its secrets and reshaped it until it was truly modern dialogic, representative, humane. You stripped it of ease and false comfort and fake innocence and evasion and hypocrisy. And in place of deviousness was clarity. In place of soft plump lies was a lean, targeted power. In place of intellectual disingenuousness and what you called ''exasperating egocentricity,'' you gave us undecorated truth. You replaced lumbering platitudes with an upright elegance. You went into that forbidden territory and decolonized it, ''robbed it of the jewel of its naivete,'' and un-gated it for black people so that in your wake we could enter it, occupy it, restructure it in order to accommodate our complicated passion - not our vanities but our intricate, difficult, demanding beauty, our tragic, insistent knowledge, our lived reality, our sleek classical imagination - all the while refusing ''to be defined by a language that has never been able to recognize [ us ] .'' In your hands language was handsome again. In your hands we saw how it was meant to be: neither bloodless nor bloody, and yet alive.

It infuriated some people. Those who saw the paucity of their own imagination in the two-way mirror you held up to them attacked the mirror, tried to reduce it to fragments which they could then rank and grade, tried to dismiss the shards where your image and theirs remained - locked but ready to soar. You are an artist after all and an artist is forbidden a career in this place; an artist is permitted only a commercial hit. But for thousands and thousands of those who embraced your text and who gave themselves permission to hear your language, by that very gesture they ennobled themselves, became unshrouded, civilized.

The second gift was your courage, which you let us share: the courage of one who could go as a stranger in the village and transform the distances between people into intimacy with the whole world; courage to understand that experience in ways that made it a personal revelation for each of us. It was you who gave us the courage to appropriate an alien, hostile, all-white geography because you had discovered that ''this world [ meaning history ] is white no longer and it will never be white again.'' Yours was the courage to live life in and from its belly as well as beyond its edges, to see and say what it was, to recognize and identify evil but never fear or stand in awe of it. It is a courage that came from a ruthless intelligence married to a pity so profound it could convince anyone who cared to know that those who despised us ''need the moral authority of their former slaves, who are the only people in the world who know anything about them and who may be, indeed, the only people in the world who really care anything about them.'' When that unassailable combination of mind and heart, of intellect and passion was on display it guided us through treacherous landscape as it did when you wrote these words - words every rebel, every dissident, revolutionary, every practicing artist from Capetown to Poland from Waycross to Dublin memorized: ''A person does not lightly elect to oppose his society. One would much rather be at home among one's compatriots than be mocked and detested by them. And there is a level on which the mockery of the people, even their hatred, is moving, because it is so blind: It is terrible to watch people cling to their captivity and insist on their own destruction.''

The third gift was hard to fathom and even harder to accept. It was your tenderness - a tenderness so delicate I thought it could not last, but last it did and envelop me it did. In the midst of anger it tapped me lightly like the child in Tish's** womb: ''Something almost as hard to catch as a whisper in a crowded place, as light and as definite as a spider's web, strikes below my ribs, stunning and astonishing my heart . . . the baby, turning for the first time in its incredible veil of water, announces its presence and claims me; tells me, in that instant, that what can get worse can get better . . . in the meantime - forever - it is entirely up to me.'' Yours was a tenderness, of vulnerability, that asked everything, expected everything and, like the world's own Merlin, provided us with the ways and means to deliver. I suppose that is why I was always a bit better behaved around you, smarter, more capable, wanting to be worth the love you lavished, and wanting to be steady enough to witness the pain you had witnessed and were tough enough to bear while it broke your heart, wanting to be generous enough to join your smile with one of my own, and reckless enough to jump on in that laugh you laughed. Because our joy and our laughter were not only all right, they were necessary.

You knew, didn't you, how I needed your language and the mind that formed it? How I relied on your fierce courage to tame wildernesses for me? How strengthened I was by the certainty that came from knowing you would never hurt me? You knew, didn't you, how I loved your love? You knew. This then is no calamity. No. This is jubilee. ''Our crown,'' you said, ''has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do,'' you said, ''is wear it.''

And we do, Jimmy. You crowned us.

* A character in ''Just Above My Head'';

** a character in ''If Beale Street Could Talk''; two novels by James Baldwin.

For Dr G Yunupingu: ‘Rest in peace, Rainbow Child’, by Michael Gunner - 2017

19 September 2017, Darwin, Australia

 “I was born and blind and I don’t know why. God knows why, because he love me so”.

Thank you Jessica, Manuel and the Y boys for your beautiful and moving rendition.

God did know why, though we, as flawed and finite mortals, can ourselves only guess and wonder.

Perhaps it was so a little boy from Elcho Island discovered his first pleasures not in the prodigious light and colour of that place, but in the sounds of sticks on tin cans in the sand – small cans, big cans, sharp sounds, deep sounds, rearranged and rearranged again.

Perhaps it was so that little boy expanded his curious mind not in what could be absorbed through the eyes, but in the infinite mathematics of music – the contours, the shapes, the peaks, valleys and trails of a 12-key piano accordion, guitar, and church hymns.

Perhaps it was so he felt the weight of song and language so keenly that, when combined with those other gifts bestowed by God, he would as a man make others as far away as Los Angeles, London and New York feel that weight, too.

That this humble Yolngu man from Elcho Island, could one day show the world its humanity through the passion, love and poetry of his people.

That through music, the world would come to hear, and even sing along with, the most ancient, living languages on earth.

That through music, he would remind us that while we are all unique in our colours, shapes and histories, we are all fundamentally the same.

Black or white, our skin goose-bumps at his melodies Brown or blue, our eyes close to absorb his voice.

He would soothe and sleep crying infants of all cultures.

His music is instantly of the Territory, its people and its languages, but it resonates far beyond our borders - and will forever more - because it is the music of humanity.

It is something deeper, something nourishing, something shared. In a 2008 interview, Dr Yunupingu said:

“When I hear that non-Aboriginal people start crying when they hear my music I am pleased to hear it, as it means we are all sharing the same experience and that there is not so much difference between us - black and white.”

Dr Yunupingu never sought fame, nor audiences with the Queen or Barack Obama.

He never sought ARIAs, NIMAs, Deadly Awards, A.I.R Awards, Limelight Awards, Northern Territory Indigenous Music Awards, APRA Awards or Helpmann Awards.

He remained a humble man. He remained a traditional Yolngu man. But the audiences and accolades found him because God had a plan. “I was born and blind and I don’t know why. God knows why, because he love me so”.

It is one of the honours of my life that I can stand here today to give thanks on behalf of Territorians to the man and his creator.

I give thanks on behalf of all the people of the world who, like me, weren’t fortunate enough to know him intimately - his warm personality or sense of humour - but who came to know him through music.

Today, as we remember and say thanks for Dr Yunupingu, I stand on the lands of the Larrakia. There are ancient and still-powerful connections to all Northern Territory lands.

People lived, loved, raised families, sang and danced here for a thousand generations before our own and will do for a thousand more.

Dr Yunupingu’s music speaks of the Yolngu connection to land and family. His connection to land and family.

Through his song, and in the most modern of ways - playlists, Spotify, MP3s, CDs - we live, know and share an ancient cultural legacy.

Through his song, we live, know and share love. We are richer for it. The world is richer for it.

I say thank you.

I say Yakurr djil’ngi yothu djarimi. Rest in Peace, Rainbow Child.

for Barbara Bush: 'She called her style, a benevolent dictatorship. But honestly, it wasn't always benevolent', by Jeb Bush - 2018

21 April 2018, St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas, USA

As I stand here today to share a few words about my mom, I feel her looming presence behind me.

And I know exactly what she's thinking right now."Jeb, keep it short. Don't' drag this out. People have already heard enough remarks already and most of all, don't get weepy. Remember, I've spent decades laughing and living a life with these people!" 

And that is true. 

Barbara Bush filled our lives with laughter and joy and in the case of her family, she was our teacher and role model on how to live a life of purpose and meaning.

 Mom got us through our difficult times with consistent, take-it-to-the-bank, unconditional but tough love. She called her style, a benevolent dictatorship. But honestly, it wasn't always benevolent.

On behalf of our family we want to thank the thousands and thousands of expressions of condolence and love for our precious mother.

We want to thank mom's caregivers for their compassionate care in the last month's of her life. I want to thank Neil and Maria for their next door family love of our parents and thank John and Suzanne for their eloquent words. 

Meachum, it might have been a little long but it was beautiful. We want to thank Russ and Laura for their friendship and pastoral care of our parents and we want to thank all that are here to celebrate the life of Barbara Bush.

It is appropriate to express gratitude because we learned to do that at a very early age.

You see our mom was our first and most important teacher. "Sit up, look people in the eye, say please and thank you, do your homework, quit whining and stop complaining, eat your broccoli". 

Yes, Dad she said that .

The little things we learned became habits and they led to bigger things like, be kind. Always tell the truth, Never disparage anyone. Serve others.

Treat everyone as you would want to be treated and love your God with your heart and soul.

What a blessing to have a teacher like that 24/7. Now to be clear, her students weren't perfect. That's an understatement.

 We learned a lot more from our mom and our Ganny...Her authentic, plastic pearls. Her not coloring her hair - by the way, she was beautiful till the day she died.

Mom got us through our difficult times with consistent, take-it-to-the-bank, unconditional but tough love.

She called her style, a benevolent dictatorship. But honestly, it wasn't always benevolent.

When our children got a little older, they would spend more time visiting their Gampy and Ganny.

All it would take would be one week and when they came home, all of a sudden they were pitching in around the house. They didn't fight as much and they were actually nice to be with.

I attribute this to the unbridled fear of the ganny lecture and the habit forming effects of better behavior taking hold even in her 90s, mom could strike fear into her grandchildren, nephews, nieces and her children, if someone didn't behave.

 The last time mom went in to the hospital, I think Dad got sick on purpose so that he could be with her...he came into a room when she was sleeping and held her hand. He looked like hell...Mom opened her eyes and said, "My God, George, you are devastatingly handsome!" Every nurse, doctor, staffer had to run to the hallway because they all started crying.

There were no safe spaces or microaggressions allowed with Barbara Pierce Bush. 

'But in the end, every grandchild knew their Ganny loved them. We learned a lot more from our mom and our Ganny. We learned not to take ourselves too seriously

'We learned that humor is a joy that should be shared some of my greatest memories are participating in our family dinners when mom would get into it, most of the time with George W, as you might imagine, and having us all laughing to tears. 

'We learned to strive to be genuine and authentic by the best role model in the world.

'Her authentic, plastic pearls. Her not coloring her hair - by the way, she was beautiful till the day she died. 

'Her hugging of an HIV aids patient at a time when her own mother wouldn't do it.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH'S 1994 LOVE LETTER TO BARBARA ON THEIR 49th ANNIVERSARY

As part of his Eulogy, Jeb read aloud a letter his father sent his mother on their 49th wedding anniversary. It read:

"Will you marry me? Oops, I forgot we did that 49 years ago. I was very happy on that day in 1945 but I am even happier today .

"You have given me joy that few men know. You have made our boys into men by balling them out and then, right away, by loving them.

"You've helped Doro be the sweetest, greatest daughter in the whole wide world.

"I have climbed perhaps the highest mountain in the world but even that cannot hold a candle to being Barbara's husband.

 "Mom used to tell me, "Now, George, don't walk ahead." Little did she know I was only trying to keep up, keep up with Barbara Pierce from Rye, New York. I love you."

'Her standing by her man with a little rhyming poetry in the 1984 election. And a thousand other ways. Barbara Pierce Bush was real and that's people admired her and loved her so.

'Finally, our family has had front row seat for the most amazing love story. 

'Through a multitude of moves, from New Haven to Odessa to Ventura, to Bakersfield, to Compton, to Midland, to Houston, to DC, to New York, to DC, to Beijing, to DC, to Houston, to DC, back to Houston and Kennebunkport, their love was a constant in our lives.

My dad is a phenomenal letter writer and he would write mom on their wedding anniversaries which totalled an amazing 73 years.

Here's one of them written on January 6, 1994:

"Will you marry me? Oops, I forgot we did that 49 years ago. I was very happy on that day in 1945 but I am even happier today .

"You have given me joy that few men know. You have made our boys into men by balling them out and then, right away, by loving them.

"You've helped Doro be the sweetest, greatest daughter in the whole wide world.

"I have climbed perhaps the highest mountain in the world but even that cannot hold a candle to being Barbara's husband.

"Mom used to tell me, "Now, George, don't walk ahead." Little did she know I was only trying to keep up, keep up with Barbara Pierce from Rye, New York. 

"I love you."

'The last time mom went in to the hospital, I think Dad got sick on purpose so that he could be with her.

That's my theory at least cause literally a day later he showed up with an illness, he came into a room when she was sleeping and held her hand, his hair was standing straight up, he was wearing a mask to improve his breathing, he was wearing a hospital gown, in other words, he looked like hell.

Mom opened her eyes and said, "My God George, you are devastatingly handsome!"

Every nurse, doctor, staffer had to run to the hallway because they all started crying.

I hope you can see why we think our mom and our dad are teachers and models for our entire family and for many others.

Finally, the last time I was with her, I asked her about dying. Was she ready to go? Was she sad? Without missing a beat, she said, "Jeb, I believe in Jesus and he is my savior.

"I don't want to leave your dad but I know I will be in a beautiful place." 

Mom, we look forward to being with you and Robyn and all of God's children.

We love you.

for Winnie Mandela: 'She dared to take on one of the most powerful and evil regimes of the past century, and she triumphed', by Zenani Mandela-Dlamini - 2018

14 April 2018, Orlando Stadium, Soweto, South Africa

Ladies and gentleman, family, friends and all those who’ve travelled from near and afar to be at my mother’s funeral, good morning. Your presence means everything to me and my family. Ever since we announced that my mother had departed this world, we’ve been comforted and strengthened in our hour of grief and weakness by your love, your messages, your visitations, and above all your testimonies of what my mother meant to each of you.

From the afternoon of April the 2nd, when we had to share, even as our hearts were heavy, that we had lost the woman the world knew as Winnie Madikizela Mandela, but who I simply called mum, we have been shielded from our own pain by your love for her.

To those of you who took time to come to Mama’s house to pay your respects, to bring us your condolences: thank you. We have been touched by your humanity. May you do for others what you have done for us. 

I stand here this morning to both mourn my mother and also, like you, to celebrate her life. Because hers is one of the most unique stories in recent history. She dared to take on one of the most powerful and evil regimes of the past century, and she triumphed. For those who have not had the time or the courage to go beyond the quick headlines or the rushed profiles, I urge you to search the archives so that you may fully appreciate who my mother really was, and why her life and story matters so much.

One of the most important measures of how someone’s life has been lived is the extent to which they have touched others. By this measure, my mother’s life was a remarkable one. For those of us who’ve been close to her, we have always appreciated just how much she meant to the world. But even we were unprepared for the scale of the outpouring of love and personal testimonies from so many. From the rising generation, which is too young to have been around when my mother took on the Apartheid State, to those who hail from the African Diaspora, we have been reminded of how she touched so many, in ways that are so deeply personal. 

As a family we have watched in awe as young women stood up and took a stand of deep solidarity with my mother. I know that she would be very proud of each of you, and grateful for your acts of personal courage: for joining hands in the #IAmWinnie movement, wearing your doeks and bravely mounting a narrative that counters the one that had become, to our profound dismay, my mother’s public story over the last twenty-five years of her life. Like her, you showed that we can be beautiful, powerful and revolutionary—even as we challenge the lies that have been peddled for so long.

As the world—and particularly the media, which is so directly complicit in the smear campaign against my mother—took notice of your acts of resistance, so too did this narrative begin to change. The world saw that a young generation, unafraid of the power of the establishment, was ready to challenge its lies, lies that had become part of my mother’s life. And this was also when we saw so many who had sat on the truth come out one by one, to say that they had known all along that these things that had been said about my mother were not true. And as each of them disavowed these lies, I had to ask myself:

"Why had they sat on the truth and waited till my mother’s death to tell it?’ It is so disappointing to see how they withheld their words during my mother’s lifetime, knowing very well what they would have meant to her. Only they know why they chose to share the truth with the world after she departed. I think their actions are actions of extreme cruelty, because they robbed my mother of her rightful legacy during her lifetime. It is little comfort to us that they have come out now.

I was particularly angered by the former police commissioner George Fivaz for cruelly only coming out with the truth after my mother’s death. 

And to those who’ve vilified my mother through books, on social media and speeches, don’t for a minute think we’ve forgotten. The pain you inflicted on her lives on in us.

Praising her now that she’s gone shows what hypocrites you are. Why didn’t you do the same to any of her male counterparts and remind the world of the many crimes they committed before they were called saints.

Over the past week and a half it’s become clear that South Africa, and indeed the world, holds men and women to different standards of morality. Much of what my mother has been constantly asked to account for is simply ignored when it comes to her male counterparts. And this kind of double standard acts also to obscure the immense contribution of women to the fight for the emancipation of our country from the evil of Apartheid. I say ‘fight’ because the battle for our freedom was not some polite picnic at which you arrived armed with your best behaviour. 

The Apartheid state developed a sophisticated and brutal infrastructure for our oppression. It was intolerant of any talk of democracy, especially from a woman activist. I hope that the rediscovery of the truth about my mother helps South Africans come to terms with the pivotal role that she, Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela, played in freeing us from the shackles of the system of terrorism and white supremacy known as Apartheid.

At my mother’s 80th birthday in September 2016, I said: ‘One day, the story of how you fought back so valiantly against that terrible and powerful regime will be told. Without the distortions.’ It is not two years since I uttered those words and already they’re coming true. Those who notice such things would have realized that her 2013 book, 491 Days—which tells the story of the brutality she experienced at the hands of the Apartheid state, the depths of her despair and her extraordinary resilience and defiance under extreme pressure—was already an invitation for a deep re-evaluation of her life. Because anyone who reads that book grasps just how much my mother dedicated her life to the struggle for a free South Africa. 

She made the choice that she would raise two families: her personal family and the larger family that was her beloved country. And to her there was no contradiction in this choice, because she cherished freedom as much as she treasured her family. She was not prepared to choose between the two. She believed it was her calling to defend and protect both from the constant assaults by the Apartheid State.

Five years ago we lost my father and the world descended on South Africa to show its love for him. I truly believe that it is worth repeating that long before it was fashionable to call for Nelson Mandela’s release from Robben Island, it was my mother who kept his memory alive. She kept his name on the lips of the people. Her very appearance—regal, confident, and stylish—angered the Apartheid authorities and galvanized the people. She kept my father’s memory in the people’s hearts.

For those who have wondered, let me assure you that even at the height of her activism, my mother always found a way to let me and my sister know that we were the most special people in her life. When we could not be with her, she wrote letters to us. When we were with her, she did not even have to say anything: her love for us was written on her face. But because she had such a big heart, my mother could also love the community where she lived, no matter where that was. So that when she was banished to Brandfort, she immersed herself in the affairs of this little community and improved the lives of the people, who, in turn, received her with so much love.

In closing, let me say that when you read popular history about the liberation struggle as it currently stands, you can be forgiven for thinking that it was a man’s struggle, and a man’s triumph. Nothing could be further from the truth. My mother is one of the many women who rose against patriarchy, prejudice and the might of a Nuclear-armed state to bring about the peace and democracy we enjoy today.

Every generation is gifted one or two people who shine as brightly as the brightest stars. My sister and I are doubly lucky, in that we got to call Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela our mother and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela our father. Unlike many of those who imagine a contested legacy between my father and my mother, we do not have the luxury of such a choice. The two of them were our parents. And all we ask is: no matter how tempting it may be to compare and contrast them, just know that sometimes it is enough to contemplate two historical figures and accept that they complemented each other, far more than any popular narrative might suggest. 

I’m deeply grateful to have known and cherished this woman that I called my mother. It is difficult to accept that she is no longer with us. Because she was always so strong. I’m comforted by your presence and your palpable love for this woman we came to know as Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela. As she said in her lifetime, ‘I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy.’ 

May we learn from her and be inspired by her courage. 

Thank you.

for Billy Graham: 'Everyone who dies in Christ goes immediately into the arms of Christ for eternity', by Kathie Lee Gifford - 2018

21 February 2018, NBC Studios, Los Angeles, USA

They told me, I was in makeup across the street and I just immediately put up my hands and said, thank you Lord! Thank you Lord.

Because he has been lingering and languishing. Last time I saw him was at his 95th birthday party, Frank was alive then too. And I went down there too. And I was sitting with his granddaughter  and hadn't seen him, he was quite frail,. but I knew in my heart that it would be the last time I might see him.

So I said to her, can I go over and just tell your grandfather thank you? Because my whole family came to faith in Jesus through the Billy Graham organization.

And I personally did going to the first movie the Billy Graham organisation put out, it was called 'The Restless Ones', and it was like God met me in my heart right were I lived. I'd wanted to be an actress. So where does God meet me? In a movie theatre. And at that time he took a lot of flak for ever making a movie.

What just happened for Billy happened for my husband, it happened for my mother, for my father, everyone who dies in Christ goes immediately into the arms of Christ for eternity, That is the hope of the Christian faith… Yes it gives it gives us the tools to live our lives while we're alive, but that's why I could hold my dead husband in my arms and rejoice ... Because I knew where he was!  It gives us the peace that passes all understanding, and if there’s anything we need in this world now it’s peace.

People ask me why I’m so bold, about my faith. I say, ‘you know what, If you had the cure for cancer would you keep silent? And I always say,  I have the cure for the malignancy of the soul, and it has a name and it’s Jesus.

And if you could just see, I talked somebody off a cliff this morning, at 4.30 in the morning, and he was saying 'how do I know your Jesus, how can I get to know your Jesus?' And I feel so privileged to know, just to be able to share the good news. Gospel means good news. It's good news! And I’m not talking about a religion, I’m talking about a relationship with a living God. They're so different. They're so different. We don’t need more religion, we need more Jesus.

But that night, at his birthday party, I mean he wasn't very, his eyes, he assisted everyone called him Billy, and I went over to him and I said, 'Billy, Billy .... '  and I he was doing sort of this, and I said, 'Billy, it's Kathie Lee' and he said, 'Oh Kathie Lee ... I love you.' I was so grateful. The only time he ever did a secular television show, that wasn't news, was my first Christmas special.

And he came to my house in Greenwich Connecticut, and all i wanted them to do was sit in front of the fire and read the Book of Luke to my children, Cass was one and a half and Cody was four and a half, and he did, and all their little friends were there, and it was one of my great great memories.

But before that happened, he got there, and we weren't quite ready to shoot his scene,. so I said, 'Dr Graham' and he said,'oh no no no, you've got to call me Billy, we can't be friends unless you call me Billy', I'd met him before, but this was an intimate ... he's in my home! This was one of those pinch me things you know.

My mother and my sister both came to know the Lord through one of his crusades on television. I come home from school and I see my mother and my sister on their knees sobbing their eyes out, and I'm thinking 'who's died'. But no, it's who was born.

He was one of a kind, and let me give you an example of that. When I said to him, 'okay Billt, what can I get you  anything, Frank and I were standing there, 'we can get you anything you like before we start shooting.' He says 'Anything?' And we say, 'yes anything you like', and he goes, 'Can I have a Big Mac?' Frank goes, 'I'm gonna go get you ten Big Macs'. He goes around the corner to our local McDonalds and comes back with about a hundred Big Macs for everybody. Billy went upstairs, happily munching on Biog Macs until he came back down and shared the gospel again.

I mean we're all just human. We're all just human.

for Michael Gordon: ' His smile came from deep down, like the sun appearing over a horizon', by Martin Flanagan - 2018

16 February 2018, MCG, Members Dining Room, Melbourne, Australia

Michael Gordon may be the most sensitive man I ever met. When you spoke to him, you could hear the words drop inside him. Like coins in a slot machine. If you said personal things about him, he would blush. His smile came from deep down, like the sun appearing over a horizon. If you asked him a question, there was always a pause, then a slight stammer preceding a rush of words. But not many words – he was a clear, precise thinker. And that was how he wrote – clearly, precisely.

I knew him in two ways. The first was as the sports editor when I arrived at The Age in 1985. He gave me a nickname – Flanners – which I still meet daily. He gave me my break as a sportswriter in sports-mad Melbourne. He made me feel that he loved what I did and I loved doing it for him. That never changed, regardless of our positions on the paper.

We separated from The Age at the same time, mid-way through last year. For my farewell column, I had a number of ideas. He told me which one to write – a story about my brother, Tim. I always did what he told me or asked me to do. He asked me to go to the office on his last day so I did that also. We left the building together.

He said we both got better as we got older. I certainly thought he did. He became more his own man, dared to do stories that weren’t going to get clicks on-line. At a time when - for some - clicks on-line were the measure of a journalist’s worth. He wrote stories about refugees, powerless people none of us really want to know about because the subject is threatening in so many ways.

What is remarkable about Micky’s journalism is its consistency.  He wrote about football, he wrote Aboriginal stories, he wrote about Canberra politics, he wrote about Manus Island refugees, and the subjects of all those very different stories seem to agree that he treated them fairly and well. Somehow his method successfully negotiated the difficulties peculiar to each area. That’s very rare, I reckon.

Alastair Clarkson is the dominant AFL coach of this era. No-one has come near to Michael’s portrait of Clarkson in his book, “Playing to Win”. The day after Micky died, I received a text from Patrick Dodson’s office. When will Kumunjai Gordon’s funeral be? Kumanjai. An Aboriginal term of respect for the recently departed. Both a Labor and Liberal Prime Minister have spoken of him since his death; a refugee on Manus Island said he was the one great Australian man he met.

What was the secret of Michael Gordon’s success? He was humble with a capital H, never opened his mouth before thinking, asked intelligent questions, never lost sight of those basic human truths the Americans describe as self-evident - and he reported his findings in an easy-to read way.

Last Sunday, I met a former Age employee at the supermarket. She was immediately tearful and I knew why – Michael Gordon. “I didn’t really know him,” she said. “It’s what he represented”.

We live in the era of fake news. There was not a single fake particle in Michael Gordon, and that was recognised in places as far apart as the Lodge in Canberra and the Manus Island Detention Centre. His life stands as an example of what journalism can be and do.

Related speech: Sarah and Scott Gordon also delivered amazing eulogies for their father and shared them with Speakola. " 13 days ago my Dad’s big, beautiful, generous heart suddenly stopped beating. And we didn’t see it coming. " Read and listen here.

for Nelson Mandela: 'Tata Madiba taught us that we can overcome the evils of our societies', by Joyce Banda

10 December 2013, FNB Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa

Joyce Banda was President of Malawi at the time of the memorial

It is with a deep sense of humility that I accepted to come and be part of this event today

I stand before you today to join you, the people of South Africa, and the world, to mourn the loss of a great leader: Nelson Rohlihlahla Mandela.

I join you, the people of this rainbow nation, to celebrate a life of one of Africa’s unique leaders who gallantly fought for freedom and peace for this great country and the world.

The first time I was privileged to meet Mandela was during his visit to Malawi in 1990, after his release from prison, when he came to meet the President, Kamuzu Banda.

I was amazed with his humility and the great sense of leadership around him.

In 1996, I was further privileged to be invited to visit Robben Island together with a team from Malawians. After the tour of Robben Island, I was greatly touched by the life and story of Tata Mandela and since then I sought to know and understand this great son of Africa.

I read and read about anything I could lay my hands on about him.

In 1997, I met Tata Mandela at a Conference for Smart Partnership in Kasane, Botswana. I was inspired by this great leader who was focused, calm and collected.

A few years later, I had an opportunity to visit Tata Mandela and Mama Graca Machel at their home in Johannesburg. We had a very moving conversation. I was deeply touched by his spirit of forgiveness, his passion to put people first and courage. These attributes have greatly influenced my life.

Allow me to share that moment because it is important. I walked into that house, and Mama Graca was facing me, and I thought that she was taking me to a room, when then after that she was going to go and collect Madiba. I walked into the room not knowing he was already sitting there. And when I turned and saw him, my first reaction was to run out . And as I was running out, the picture that I have, that has been showing in Malawi this last week, is Mama Graca pulling me back. It was him.

At that moment I did not know that I was to become President of Malawi a few months down the line. At the moment I became Presidnet of Malawi, I had been isolated, humiliated, called names, and survived an assassination attempt on my life.

I found myself in a situation where I had to work with those same people who had  prevented me from becoming President of my country.

I had to forgive but I had to forgive without any effort, because my Madiba had prepared me.  Tata’s courage, determination, love and passion for his people inspired me on my journey to becoming the first elected woman President in my country.

I learned that leadership is about falling in love with the people that you serve and the people falling in love with you.

It is about serving the people with selflessness, with sacrifice and with the need to put the common good ahead of personal interests.

I am saying all this because the day after Madiba passed away, the BBC called Malawi to interview me, and they say that a lot of African leaders are talking about the lessons that you ought to learn from Madiba, but are you practising them? Are you doing it? And i said yes. Come and see.

Today, I stand before you, on behalf of our regional grouping and family, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), to extend a collective hand of comfort to the Mandela Family, the Government of the Republic of South Africa, the African National Congress and to all South Africans on this irreplaceable loss of one of its true sons, Tata Madiba.

The passing on of Tata Mandela is not only a loss to South Africa, but also to the SADC Region, and indeed to the world. As we celebrate the life of this icon, it is also time to take stock of the things that Tata Madiba taught us during his time.

I know that much has already been said about Tata by those whose lives have been touched and inspired by his work. I need to add a few words. The SADC region will remember him for his wisdom and statesmanship; his humility and sense of humour; and his servant leadership style. Tata Madiba believed that all people are created equal before God.

The way he conducted himself, he saw no boundaries in this region, between and among the countries of the region that we live. He championed the freedom of not only South Africans but of all Africans.

Tata Madiba taught us that even when the challenges of life seem insurmountable, with courage and determination, we can overcome the evils of our societies.

The struggle Tata Madiba led against the apartheid system was not just a struggle against racial inequality, but a struggle against all forms of oppression against humanity; a struggle for democracy and human dignity. It was the struggle for the emancipation of the youth. It was a struggle for the social security of children.

It was a struggle for the participation of women in politics, in commerce and in high offices. It was a struggle to overcome poverty. Yes, it was a struggle for Africa’s freedom.

We in the SADC Region will remember Tata as a great reformer who championed the cause of humanity, deepening democracy and dedicated his life to selfless service, a man who worked tirelessly to promote national, regional and world peace.

We in the SADC Region, whilst mourning his death, we also see this as an opportunity to celebrate the life of a great Statesman, an icon from our own region.

The life of Tata Mandela will continue to inspire those of us left behind, to promote peace and security, deepen regional integration and work to support one another as it was during the fight against apartheid. We will strive to emulate President Mandela’s stature and spirit so that his legacy can live on.

The ideals of political, social and economic emancipation that he stood for will inspire us forever as a Region.

In conclusion, I believe I am speaking for many within the region.

Tata’s words are still echoing in our minds, his call to get millions of young people in the region decent jobs. His call to get millions of our women and men out of poverty, deprivation and underdevelopment.

His call to get food for the hungry, to eradicate preventable diseases, to let people find their voice, and restore their dignity. These words will inspire SADC long after Tata Madiba is gone.

Our Dear Father and compatriot, Tata Nelson Mandela, fought a good fight and he finished the race well.

As an African woman and leader, I wish to acknowledge Mama Winnie Madikizela Mandela for her efforts and steadfastness for standing with Tata Mandela before and during Tata’s imprisonment and for being in the forefront of ANC’s struggle for liberation.

And to you, Mama Graca Machel, I wish to thank you for your visible love and care for our Madiba  during the last days of his life.

Women across Africa have told me these last ten days, that they are very very proud to you, and will forever be grateful for what you have taught us as African women.

Allow me to talk to both of you, the love and tolerance you have demonstrated before the whole world during the funeral has shown us that you are prepared to continue with our Madiba's ideals. I wish to thank President Zuma for leading the nation to mourn Madiba like the hero that he is. As SADC we feel very proud. You have done your level best. This was not a wedding, this was a funeral, and you made every effort to see that we bury our father with dignity.

In the same spirti, I wish to therefore appeal to you President Zuma, and under your leadership, all South Africans, to make this appeal that you remain united and continue to be a rainbow nation for this is what Tata Madiba cherished .

It is our hope and prayer that South Africa will remain a country of all people regardless of race, colour, religion and tribe.

SADC will stand with you and by you, and look forward to a continued engagement in our joint efforts to deepen democracy and regional integration. It is now up to us as leaders, as citizens, as a continent to continue from where Tata Madiba has left, so that his legacy lives on, so that he can be remembered for what he stood for, and that we should not allow what he fought for and lived to die with him.

May his soul Rest in Peace! I thank you.