For John Kennedy Snr: 'For being reminded of Kennedy is being reminded also of what Hawthorn is all about', by David Parkin - 2020

2 July 2020, Our Lady of Victories, Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia

David Parkin’s was captain of Hawthorn’s 1971 premiership side under Kennedy. Speech begins at 38.20.


Whilst the past nine days has been a time of great sadness and reflection, today I hope can be remembered as a genuine celebration of a remarkable and, in many ways, unique man’s life.

My association with ‘Kanga’ goes back nearly six decades. I have known him as a coach, father, husband, colleague, critical friend and educationalist. Like hundreds of others, with their parents being the exception, he became the most significant and positive person in their lives. The many conversations I’ve had this past week, would certainly reinforce that.

Two people I know well have sought some solace in John’s passing by visiting Waverley Park to stand in front of his imposing statue, to pay homage and reflect on his legacy.

In many ways, it’s not difficult to understand why this man was held in such high esteem. No, it’s more than that – reverence! This reverence came about not because of his many achievements, numerous as they have been, but because of the respect for the qualities of the man himself. Many, including me, have spoken this week about those attributes, but they bear repeating:

1. His complete objectivity in decision making!
I’ve met no other man in life who could make decisions without fear or favour. What was best for the team or club always prevailed. Personal feelings or relationships never influenced his decision. For example, the sacking of Lance Morton in 1970 mid-season and Kevin Heath in 1975 pre-season; his non-selection of Peter Crimmins in the 1975 Grand Final; his departure to Stawell in 1964; his appointment to North Melbourne in 1985. All are actions of a decisive decision maker. We admired him enormously for that!

2. His absolute single-mindedness
Nothing superficial or extraneous ever interfered with the achievement of the objective. His ability to pass through the pain barrier was a great example for us to follow.

In a pre-season run, using the ‘Walk Against Want’ as his vehicle (25 kms from Glenferrie Oval to Eastland in Ringwood) and John, now in his forties, caught up to Des Meagher, the best endurance runner in the Club, at Antonio Park and suggested a walk. Des said yes, then took off with Kanga in hot pursuit. He was eventually beaten into second place by Des, who took a shortcut. John never forgave him!

3. His exceptional oratory
The players were given plenty in his pre, during and post-match addresses. His “at least DO something? DO, don’t think, don’t hope, DO! has become part of football folklore. But I was always in the front row! He used his knowledge of literature as an exceptional skill, to provide the connection between football and life, using the philosophy of Karl Marx, the beauty of William Shakespeare and the passion of Sir Winston Churchill.

4. His tremendous sense of humour
Whilst his leadership style would have to be termed ‘autocratic’, there are multitude examples of this over the 60-70 years, but I will mention two:

i) On the back of a 103 point turnaround versus Essendon in 1973, (Round 3 to Round 15) there was no post-match team meeting, although I could see that John was seething. The following Tuesday night we copped 30 minutes of his best condemnation for our lack of effort. His closing words I will never forget. “The trouble with this generation is that you have dollars on your backs, fast cars in the carpark, and Brut under your armpits!” He then stormed off to have a shower. No-one followed. He reappeared and then we showered too. As Ian Bremner came out of the bathroom he hesitated near Kanga’s locker and said to Kel Moore “Can you throw me over your Brut mate?” to which Kel replied “Hang on a minute Brem, it’s out in my new Monaro in the carpark”. Even the coach, himself, had to smile.

ii) To put this into context, some years back Ray Wilson rang me to ask whether as a player I had ever had John put his arm around me and say “well done”. I assured him that never happened! “That’s good” said Ray, “I thought I was the only one to miss out”.

On the basis that JK was not one for handing our bouquets to anyone, Don Scott was pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call from Kanga on Grand Final day a few years back. He was ringing to tell Scotty how well he had played in the 1971 Grand Final – some 27 years before! Apparently he couldn’t sleep on Grand Final eve, had turned on the TV to see Channel 7’s Grand Final marathon. Lo and behold, it was the replay of 1971, which apparently he had never watched.

Early the next morning Scotty received the phone call from John reinforcing how well he had played. He was dumbfounded but really excited and rang his three friends to tell them his news. I congratulated him on being the first and only player to receive that reinforcement from our coach.

Immediately I rang Kanga to make sure he understood the significance of his phone call, and asked him if he had my telephone number to give me a similar call? “Sorry Dave”, he said “but you didn’t play all that well, so I won’t be making that call”!

5. His complete and utter humility
John was always embarrassed by the accolades from others. Hawthorn or North Melbourne successes, to him, were due to the outward and visible signs, which were the players. Never was the team’s successes due to his words or deeds, and I mean NEVER!

6. Personal influence
His ability to influence the character and lives of so many young men, gave players purpose and meaning to what they were doing. There is no doubt, for this reason alone, that all who donned the Brown and Gold or Blue and White over those 18 seasons, have become better people as a result of being coached by JK.

In catching up with teammates at Club and AFL functions over the years, I have had that reinforced time and again.

Back in 1977 Hawthorn ran a testimonial dinner for John. In typical Kennedy style, he spoke at length about the people and events which had impacted his life, whilst serving that entity over the previous three decades.

I will repeat my public response then as a reminder to us all, for the years ahead.

I sincerely hope that John Kennedy is never forgotten by players, coaches, administrators and members at Hawthorn, for being reminded of Kennedy is being reminded also of what Hawthorn is all about.

Rest in peace great man!

John Kennedy 20 December 1928 – 24 June 2020

For Nen: 'She leaves a deep hole for such a tiny woman', by Kim Kane - 2017

17 November 2017, St John's, Toorak, Melbourne, Australia

There have been a number of sad moments this week. Opening a Word document, something I do regularly as a writer, and naming it ‘Nen’s Eulogy’ was a shock.

Constantly overriding the autocorrect on my phone -- which still changes the name ‘Ben’ to ‘Nen’, was a shock.

Making the plum pudding for the very first time without Nen – even if it was just having her issue directions from the couch as she did last year -- was a shock.

Seeing Nen’s little dog, Timmy, lying down outside her bedroom.

Throwing out Nen’s favourite shoes, the ‘comfy’ones’ that I had been urging her to replace because, as I kept trying to tell her, no deserving poor would want those…

And writing four simple words, four impossible words, Nen died on Tuesday.

I don’t know when these things will get easier. I don’t know that I want them to. But a little over a week ago, my grandmother sat down to watch the Melbourne Cup, the race that stops the Nation. And this year, it not only stopped the Nation, it also stopped Nen.

Before this week, I don’t think I understood death – that there can be good deaths – and my grandmother lived a fine life, but she had the great luck of a fine death, and for that I will always be exceptionally grateful. Nen did not want to die alone. And she didn’t. She died surrounded by family and flowers.

Over the last week, all of us sat with Nen and we told her how much she had meant to us. We got time to say goodbye and time to say thank you. Nen was able to listen to her interstate grandchildren and to her brother on the phone. She got time to say goodbye to her son and grandson. Mum, T and I took turns to sit by her bed, while the other two lay on a mattress in the bathroom, Harry Potter style. This caused a nurse to look horrified as she peered into the shower cubicle in the dark ‘Just how many relative are in there?’

And even in death, Nen was still fun and funny.

She was able to flirt with her favourite nurse Kai/Kye, even after she failed to recognize her own daughter – charm was in that girl’s DNA.

She hated to be underestimated and she had sass in spades, sass enough to roll her eyes when asked by the neurologist whether she could manage a blink.

When the minister administered last rites in the hospital, Nen sat up and barked ‘I’m fine’.

But this eulogy is not just about Nen’s death, it’s about Nen’s life, it is about a woman who lived as she wished, independently until 91 and a half, fit, elegant, charismatic and full of vim.

Nen was always the grandmother in the tailored pants and a jaunty little hat. She was always chic. She was a grandmother of whom I was immensely proud because people always commented how young and gorgeous she looked.  But of course she was young. Nen was a grandmother in her 40s.  She was younger than me and parenting a married woman who lived a hemisphere away and a teenage son on a surfboard. No wonder she had time to brush her hair.

Nen was a hoarder. Born of war time and ration cards, Nen was of a generation that was environmental because they had done without and never quite trusted it wouldn’t happen again. Consequently, she never threw anything out. Nothing. Need one of those tags that does up a bread bag? Second drawer. There’s a sack of them. 50 years worth of multigrain.

Nen loved a bargain, Nen chased bargains like they were a blood sport. She would buy a pallet of loo paper to get it at 23c a roll. Her house was often full of strange foods she picked up because it was just too hard to go past 24 pink iced donuts with a best before day of 4 November at $2.99. It gave her great pleasure just to watch them going off at that price. Besides, Nen only ever saw best before dates as a guideline rather than a deadline. If it was burnt, scrape it down. If it was mouldy, slice it off, if it was black, toss it in the freezer.

Nen was strong. The thing I learnt through observing Nen, is that you don’t just cruise into 90. You work at it. You still haul your shopping trolley up hill to the shops every day. You still walk the dog at 91 and a half. You are still mattocking your 2000m2 garden at 89. It was therefore fitting that Nen’s granddaughters helped carry her coffin out of the church this morning.

Nen was a health nut before health nuts starred on Instagram. Nen loved a bit of crudité. Bran on cereal. Porridge. All that celery. That celery is genetic. But having monitored treats for her children and then her grandchildren, Nen’s standards really slipped when it came to her great grandchildren and she used to proudly tell me that Tommy calls her ‘Bickie Nenny’. There were no rules at Nen’s. And if there were rules imposed by the parents, Nen overruled them. I would go out of the room and return to find Nen feeding the boys chocolate biscuits, Pringles and cordial half an hour before dinner. As a friend reminded my sister and me yesterday, when Nen took her out to buy a treat as a child in the 80s, they came back with a flannel. That’s the sort of treat the grandmother of my childhood was famous for.

Nen never drove in Melbourne. She had too many ks to clock up on her fitbit. But for those Sydneysiders who have seen Nen drive, there was nothing more nerve-wracking. Or to be more accurate, not seeing Nen drive. Nen was so tiny you actually couldn’t see her behind the wheel. Even propped up on her driving cushion.

Golly gosh. The car’s driving itself! It’s like driving Miss Daisy without Daisy. Look closely and you’d just sees her hands clutching the wheel [action].

Us girls inherited much from Nen: Her wit, her charm, her bunions. One of her greatest lessons, however, was that a job not done properly is not worth doing at all. I still say that as I force my way through unpacking the dishwasher, my tax or the unbearable crusade that is my son’s violin practice. Nen set very high standards for herself and was exacting about others. At no point was this proven more strongly, than one afternoon when I was 16 and constructing my fake ID at the kitchen table. Watching me hash this operation, Nen snapped. ‘Oh I’ll do it’, snatched the pencil from me and expertly executed a federal felony motivated not by the desire to break the law as much as a desire to do the job properly. I was busting to get caught just so I could explain to a magistrate that my grandmother had made it for me. Of course the job was done so properly that ID was inscrutable.

While Nen was an expert at fake ID, and certainly embraced a number of modern ideas, she never quite got on top of technology. On hearing her mobile in her handbag, Nen stopped and said. ‘Oh Mr Whippy’s changed its tune’.

Nen added contacts to her mobile by sticking names on post-it notes to the back of her phone. But she did embrace modern conveniences in fashion and became a terrific fan of both the puffer jacket and pol-ar fleece which got her through her Melbourne winters.

Nen had a terrific sense of the ridiculous. She was still willing to hop in the booster seat to travel in my car at 90. She wore bunny ears with the children at Easter, antlers at Christmas time and she delighted in games like Headbanz in which she had a card stuck to her head and tried to guess whether she was a tomato or a can of condensed milk.

Nen loved children. Any walk with Nen was slow but not because she couldn’t hip flick with the best of the speed walkers for most of her life, but because she would stop to chat to every baby. But Nen loved no babies more than those in her own family and it has been a great privilege to have had her here in Melbourne watching her great grandchildren grow up.

Nen’s commitment to family was decidedly unWASP; she carved her own family culture. She was caring to the very end. Dazed and confused in emergency, she was still caring with every last ounce of strength, comforting my sister as she cried.

Nen’s desire to nurture, came, I suspect, from the trauma of boarding school – she was sent away at 10 and returned home only twice a year. She often spoke of her mother waiting for her four children to arrive on the drive, waiting with her arms outstretched for her brood. I look at our children now and wonder how on earth she did it. This meant that Nen made her home a home in which everybody was cared for. Lean cuisine was not in Nen’s freezer or her vernacular and she never took family for granted. Until very recently, nothing was too much.Nen flew down from Sydney to help mind our children so that I could attend the Sydney Writers Festival. When we were children, she flew down from Sydney to see our school concerts. She sewed navy flannel petticoats for us to wear under our itchy school skirts. She laboured to create beautiful cakes for our birthdays and smocked our party dresses.

Almost two years ago our family toasted Nen for her 90th birthday. We were so lucky to have a grandparent so present in our lives and in the lives of our children and we knew it.

Nen died as she lived. Adored. She leaves a deep hole for such a tiny woman, one I cannot even begin to reconcile.

Darling Nen, our grand matriarch. Vale, farewell. We love you.

xxx

Australian author Kim Kane's award winning time slip novel, 'When the Lyrebird Calls' is dedated to Nen. (Allen & Unwin, 2015)

For Mahatma Gandhi: 'The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong', by Jawaharlal Nehru

10 February 1948, Allahabad, India

If, as I believe, his spirit looks upon us and sees us, nothing would displease his soul so much as to see that we have indulged in any small behavior or any violence.

Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. I do not know what to tell you and how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that. Nevertheless, we will not see him again as we have seen him for these many years. We will not run to him for advice and seek solace from hi, and that is a terrible blow, not to me only, but to millions and millions in this country, and it is a little difficult to soften the blow by any other advise that I or anyone else can give you.

The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented the living truth … the eternal truths, reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom.

All this has happened when there was so much more for him to do. We could never think that he was unnecessary or that he had done his task. But now, particularly, when we are faced with so many difficulties, his not being with us is a blow most terrible to bear.

A madman has put an end to his life, for I can only call him mad who did it, and yet there has been enough of poison spread in this country during the past years and months, and this poison has effect on people’s minds. We must face this poison, we must root out this poison, and we must face all the perils that encompass and face them not madly or badly but rather in the way that our beloved teacher taught us to face them. The first thing to remember no wish that no one of us dare misbehave because we’re angry. We have to behave like strong and determined people, determined to face all the perils that surround us, determined to carry out the mandate that our great teacher and our great leader had given us, remembering always that if, as I believe, his spirit looks upon us and sees you, nothing would displease his soul so much as to see that we have indulged in any small behavior or any violence.

So we must not do that. But that does not mean that we should be weak, but rather that we should in strength and in unity face all the troubles and difficulties and conflicts must be ended in the face of this great disaster. A great disaster is a symbol to us to remember all the big things of life and forget the small things, of which we have thought too much