For Hugh Weaver: 'The greensward field opens up before us and we have reached a special place', by Chris Weaver - 2020

February 20, 2020

6 January 2020, St John’s Anglican Church, Toorak, Melbourne, Australia

Unlike my father’s speeches, I’m not planning on speaking for two hours or using a slide presentation, but hopefully I do some justice to him all the same.

And I want to do justice to him because I owe him so much. He was a loving and extraordinarily generous man who gave me opportunities and possibilities unavailable to either him or his parents.

My father would never refer to himself as a self-made man, but in essence that is what he was. He was born into a family that valued education, intellect, hard work and generosity, but which was not wealthy by any stretch.

His father, Lloyd, worked in insurance while my father was growing up. It was a career, place and mindset a world away from his true love, which was farming at the Weaver home for the best part of a century, the Mallee town of Boort.

His mother, Olive, was a teacher whose intellect was keen and whose sense of practicality was finely honed. Dad was in many ways his mother’s child. At her funeral, my aunt stated that Olive “was a clever woman who admired people who did clever things”. It is a neat summation that remains an apt description of my father: a man who respected intellect and intellectual rigour very highly.

Dad often spoke about his childhood as being very happy. The family moved at intervals due to my grandfather’s commitments at Victoria Insurance – each move coinciding neatly with a chapter in my father’s life. He was born in Brighton; a pre-school boy in Woodend; a primary school pupil in Bendigo; and finally a high school student in Hamilton.

The Hamilton years were particularly profound. The Weavers moved to Hamilton when my father was 11 and the Western Districts town was to be the Elysian field to which his mind often returned. It was not, however, without its challenges and a watershed moment in Dad’s life occurred when he failed his matriculation at the first time of asking – a consequence of a bright boy being failed by an under-resourced system and his own immaturity. While he returned and passed at the second time of asking, the experience was profound: he became a tenacious student and, many years later, a committed and generous supporter of my own education. I don’t profess to have my father’s intellect, but I have benefitted enormously from his generosity and commitment to receiving a well-resourced education.

From school he transferred to Melbourne, where he was a resident at Queen’s College at the University of Melbourne. He originally embarked on a Science undergraduate degree, before transferring into Medicine. He graduated from Melbourne in 1970, worked as an intern at the Alfred Hospital and in late 1971 met Pamela Pettitt – his future wife.

It will never cease to amaze me that a man as profoundly unromantic as my father got lost in love’s mist so badly that he asked a woman to marry him after knowing her for just ten days. It amazed his own father even more when it turned out to be purely for love, and not because of any need for a shotgun wedding.

The next decade was a whirlwind of work, postdoctoral study and a long stint living in the United Kingdom. My parents lived overseas between early 1974 and January 1982, variously living in the Scottish town of Perth, the West Middlesex Hospital and a house they decided to buy on the spot in 1976 in the London suburb of Kew.

Dad’s diplomacy was generally positioned somewhere between Jeremy Clarkson and Sir Les Patterson. Channelling the wisdom of Australia’s famed cultural attaché, he once described the strike and inflation-riddled UK of the 1970s as being “almost a Third World Country – like Italy.” Yet they were emotionally (if not professionally) rewarding years, which my mother will talk about in greater detail and with great fondness.

Soon after returning to Melbourne, I was born: two days before the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires, which had eerily similar consequences to current events. I am an only child, which in itself tells the tale of another long and at times deflating journey which my father undertook.

At this point, I believe I should state that my father’s persistence and resilience were remarkable characteristics, present at various stages in his life. They were the traits that ensured he made the most of his intellectual talents (in spite of resources) and which served him so well in two major illnesses: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2007 and the brain cancer which he fought stoutly for the best part of four years.

In the early 1990s, his resilience and adaptability enabled him to change careers, switching his practice from orthopaedic surgery to medico-legal assessments, principally diagnosis and assessment of workplace injuries. He worked assiduously, running a business in a field that frustrated him immensely, but which provided my mother and I with stability and security.

He was astonishingly generous, both in time and money. On the latter front, he spent several decades tutoring and assessing students in anatomy – a field in which he was passionate. His strong memory and keen eye for complexity suited him to this field and it was an ongoing source of frustration for him that Australian medical schools did not value anatomical teaching in the way that he expected it to be taught. He was a proud Fellow of two esteemed professional bodies – the Royal College of Surgeons, and its antipodean equivalent, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

His lay interests were principally in biology, human history and natural history, with the latter field being crucial in his decision to undertake a Master of Philosophy after retirement. He was an unashamed Anglophile, whose life passion for Britain and its relationship with Australia informed many of his public talks and much of his private reading. In 1990, he spoke at Turkish universities about the Gallipoli landings and their significance to the First World War, while as recently as 2018 he spoke at the Medical History Society of Victoria. Dad had an eidetic memory for facts and a memory suited for lecturing. Less charitable observers might refer to it as pedantry, with a tendency to lecture.

This is the outline of the man whom many of you will know. The man I knew was not, in truth, much different. My father was not someone who adapted his persona greatly according to the audience. Instead, the changes in his behaviour were largely driven by subject matter. This meant that he could be passionate and pompous in his views, but never insipid or insincere.

Dad instilled in me the virtue of being present as a parent. For all the late nights and long shifts, he could still provide the best accounts and memories of my infancy, be the father who volunteered at junior sport and be the driver who ferried everyone else’s kids from one school or sporting commitment to another. He was generous to a fault with his time as I grew up, even when he had little of it to spare.

And he indulged my loves. Several people have mentioned to me his passion for the Melbourne Football Club, but in truth it was less his interest and more his commitment to build a relationship with his own father and his only son – two generations who have been far more stupidly invested that him in the fortunes of a mostly dreadful football team that occasionally hits purple patches of mediocrity.

Former St Kilda and North Melbourne coach Alan Killigrew said: “There are two great cons in life – communism and soccer.” My father would have agreed wholeheartedly with both elements of the statement, but it didn’t stop him from taking me to English lower division club Brentford (where the bathroom hand towels did not appear to have been changed since the Blitz), nor prevent him from encouraging me to keep touring European football grounds even once he’d been diagnosed with serious illness in 2007. He may not have understood the subject, but he always respected obsessions.

Occasionally our interests dovetailed, and we developed cherished memories of a trip to the UK in 1989, when a six-year-old boy became besotted with Westminster Abbey, the Natural History Museum and several other landmarks that represented the most keenly held of my father’s interests.

In recent years he came to know and love a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren, who formed a significant part in the final years of his life. My commitment to my children and my determination to build memories with them is driven by the realisation that it honours the same commitment that my father made to me.

I am grateful for all that my father provided me and very much intimidated by the scale on which it was offered. To be able to provide the same opportunities to my children is a major ambition, one which I know my father would rate highly.

No novel means more to me than ‘The Great Gatsby’ and no line resonates more than the final line: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Jay Gatsby believed in the green light at the end of the pier. I believe in the green field in my mind.

And in my mind, my father is leading me there. I am six years old, walking up a gravel slope clutching a copy of the Football Record and a homemade Demons streamer. Dad is holding my hand. The greensward field opens up before us and we have reached a special place. Thanks, Dad – I love you. And I always will.

For Elizabeth Joan Buddle (Betty): 'I am in awe of the way Betty conducted her life', by husband Roger Buddle - 2016

August 8, 2016

6 June 2016, Mount Barker, South Australia

Betty was born Elizabeth Joan Collins on December 1st, 1942 at the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital, Rose Park, South Australia. Her parents were Gilbert Roland Collins and Elsie Vera Collins who lived at 68 First Avenue, Nailsworth. Betty was the youngest of seven children and her six siblings were Mervyn, Beryl, Alan, Hazel, Marjorie and Kevin.

She entered the world feet first by breech birth and, given the state of the world in December 1942, maybe she was reluctant to join it – or maybe she wanted to hit the ground running, which was the way she mostly led the next 73 years of her life.

Almost from the very start she was known as Betty and that name stuck, although in later life she much preferred her full name of Elizabeth on formal occasions. Betty’s mother was a chronic invalid and a large amount of her early upbringing was by her two closest sisters, Hazel and Marjorie.

Betty attended Nailsworth Primary School from 1947 to 1954 and Adelaide Girls High School from 1955 to 1958, when she matriculated with her Leaving Certificate. After leaving school she worked as a Drafting Assistant at the SA Lands Titles Office.

I started work as a Technician-in-Training with the then Post Master General’s Department in 1957. There I met another trainee, Kevin Collins – Betty’s brother. Sometimes I would visit Kevin at home when we were studying for exams and that is how I met Betty. At that time she was still at Adelaide High and she told me years later that if she saw my car parked in front of her house as she was coming up the street on her way home from school, she would run all the way home in case I left before she got there. That accounted for her always being breathless and bright-eyed as she hung around annoying Kevin and me while we tried to study. A couple of years later I plucked up the courage to ask her out and we started courting.

One thing led to another and on August 6th, 1960 we were married at the Broadview Methodist Church. Our honeymoon was spent at Encounter Bay.

At first we lived with Betty’s sister and brother-in-law, Hazel and Ian Lovett, at Enfield and then we rented a house at Evandale while our new home was being built at 4 Farm Drive, Redwood Park. Meanwhile Catherine had been born. We moved into our new home in January 1962. Things were very tough financially and, having sold our car to raise the deposit on the house, our transport was a motorbike and then we upgraded to a motorbike and sidecar.

In those days Redwood Park was on the outer fringes of the metropolitan area with very few services or shops. Betty used to trek the six kilometres return trip to the Tea Tree Gully post office, pushing the pram, to get the monthly child endowment allowance.

Our second child, Noelene, was born in January 1964 and then Steven in September 1966. The children attended the Kathleen Mellor kindergarten in Tea Tree Gully and Betty was involved in managing the kindergarten op shop. She was also active in the Ridgehaven Primary School parent’s activities while the children were there.

In 1969 I came home from work one day to the news that Betty had seen an advertisement in the paper for a canteen assistant at the Blacks Road drive-in at Gilles Plains and she had applied for and got the job. Getting to the interview for the job had involved catching the bus into Adelaide, joining a large queue of job applicants and dragging the pusher, with Steven in it, up a flight of stairs to the office. She worked at the drive-in from 1969 to 1971 and became expert in making hamburgers, nut sundaes and banana splits.

It wasn’t long before she saw another ad for interviewers for a sport and recreation survey for the proposed Monarto satellite city. She got that job, undertook the training and completed the survey work. That led to her being employed part time as a population survey interviewer with the Bureau of Census and Statistics. She worked in that position from 1973 to 1976.

Those jobs involved interviewing randomly chosen people in their homes to gather statistics on unemployment and other domestic matters. She soon realised that she had a natural ability to listen and relate to people as they opened up to her about things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the questions in the survey.

Anyone who has had a conversation with Betty will know what I mean.

So she undertook an aptitude test with a career advisor and was told that she was suited to being either a teacher or a social worker. Luckily she chose social worker and it wasn’t long before she saw yet another ad in the paper for a cadetship with the Department for Community Welfare to study full time for the Associate Diploma of Social Work at the South Australian Institute of Technology, which is now the University of South Australia. She commenced her study in 1976 and gained her Diploma at the end of 1977.

She then worked as a Community Welfare Worker at the Elizabeth office of the Department for Community Welfare, which she described as a baptism by fire. She worked there for three and a half years from 1978 to 1981 and during that time she discovered she had a talent for helping young girls and women who were victims of abuse, both physical and sexual.

This led to her applying for the position of Social Worker at the newly formed Sexual Assault Referral Centre at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville. This was an initiative of Dr Aileen Connon and the centre initially had a staff of three – a doctor, a nurse and a social worker and liaison with the police sexual assault unit.

At first the Centre was located in the old child care building at the hospital, then later it moved to a floor in the nurses quarters and gained additional professional and support staff.

While working there Betty studied part time for her Bachelor of Social Work at the University of South Australia and graduated with her degree in 1988. She also undertook post graduate study, and in 1994 gained her Graduate Diploma of Education, Adult Training.

This all sounds very clinical when presented in a chronological fashion like this, but we need to realise that all this was achieved while Betty was holding a husband and three children together as a loving family. Driving through traffic from Redwood Park to Woodville every day, then listening to absolutely horrible and ghastly things that had happened to her clients and then driving home to cook dinner and nurture her family in the evening (which included helping with homework). In 1975 she even did it on her own while I was working in Sydney for three months.

As she gained experience in her profession she developed a model for helping victims of sexual assault through their trauma and pain. She wrote a paper on her method and called it Simple Things that Work.

In 1986 she was invited to present her paper to The First International Symposium on Rape in Jerusalem and she travelled there alone to speak at the symposium. It was the first time she had gone overseas.

Then, in 1987, she travelled to San Francisco to present her work to a conference on trauma recovery.

In 1989 her work was published in the International Journal of Medicine and Law.

After fifteen years of working in this field, listening to things every working day that nobody should have to hear, her body was starting to break down. Her health was suffering both physically and psychologically and she needed to get out. Finally she was granted retirement on grounds of ill health and she was able to start to regain her health and equilibrium.

On retirement Betty enjoyed her gardening, travel, our grandchildren - and then croquet took over. She became treasurer of the Victor Harbor Croquet Club and was responsible for gaining many thousands of dollars in grants for equipment and facility upgrades.

I am in awe of the way Betty conducted her life. She was constantly optimistic and cheerful. She could always find good in people, but by the same token she would not suffer fools lightly. She was the glue of our marriage and she tolerated my many faults and shortcomings with loving understanding. She loved our three children without reservation and absolutely adored our five grandchildren.

After she became ill with cancer she spent a lot of the last eighteen months educating me in subtle and not so subtle ways on how to survive when she was gone. She taught me to cook (well, she tried), she labelled everything, she made me recite where things are kept, she made lists and generally handed me the reins.

Betty was a unique and wonderful person. Her infectious laugh, her sparkling eyes. She was an amazing wife, companion, friend, mother and grandmother.

Coupled with this is the legacy that she has left of all the lives she has touched, and in some cases saved, of both women and men, through her work in sexual assault counselling. Going through her papers I came across many letters and cards from people who she helped regain control of their lives. A quote from just one:-

I wanted to tell you about all the good things that have come from our sessions together but I find that I am a bit lost for words when I try to thank you. To have met you has been a privilege. You are an amazing person! To think back to some of the things that you said makes me feel in awe of you… you have incredible depth and sensitivity. You are courageous: able to look Hell in the face and to venture into places that may not be safe.

Lastly, Betty made me promise that when I wrote this I would leave you laughing so here goes…

Some time ago, before she became ill, Betty went to the chemist to get a prescription filled for my anti-reflux tablets. Unknowingly she had picked up my prescription for Viagra instead.

When she returned to the chemist later to pick up the prescription the assistant handed her the box of pills and said “That will be seventy six dollars.”

Betty said “What!, they’re not usually that dear!”

The assistant said “No, that’s the correct price.”

Betty, waving the box of Viagra above her head for all the other customers to see said “Oh well, I don’t care how much they cost as long as they do the job!”.

I loved her so much.

This is an excerpt from a poem by Leonard Cohen

A Thousand Kisses Deep