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 John Lewis Foster: 'He is not here', by daughter Margot Foster - 2013
February, 2013, Kooyong Tennis Club, Melbourne, Australia
On behalf of Mum Peter and Catherine I’d like to thank Andrew Terry and Bill for their thoughts and recollections of the bloke generally known as Jake, Big Fella, Large and for some just John. You have been mates in the way that Fred Flintstone always described Barney Rubble: asbosom buddies, lifelong friends and pals.
Dad as many of you know was not a great talker – and certainly not about himself. One of his favourite sayings, and you have already heard a few of them from Peter and Catherine, was that all trouble comes from the mouth. And so it was thus when I suggested to him last year that I write down the story of his life there being so much I and we don’t know. My attempts at actually asking him questions were dead in the water from the start so I decided to email him. I said I would send him a random question a day which he could then answer expansively at his leisure. I sent 3 questions and got two answers. I asked him why he was sent to Geelong Grammar. His reply was that he had a pillow fight with Junior and Ella came upstairs and said you are going to Geelong. To the question about how he got into water polo from swimming he said “Brighton had a water polo team and it was a bit of fun to throw the ball around after miles of laps”. And that was that.
So this is some of the story I would have written though it would have been much better with his help.
John Lewis Foster was born in 1931 as you know. Unlike most of us he didn’t know the actual date of his birth until he had to apply for a passport to go to the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. His parents Judge Alfred William Foster of the Cth Arbitration Court and his former socialite mother Ella Wilhelmina Jones obviously thought it not important to tell him. I don’t know if his siblings Junior, here today, Joy and Douglas were similarly uninformed.
Dad went to Geelong for his secondary schooling after the aforementioned pillow fight. He excelled at swimming and tennis and high jumping. At some point he went to Taylors before getting into medicine. One of his memories of Geelong which he always referred to as School was that during the war, when the gardeners had gone off to fight, he and John Landy were tasked with weeding the oval. He used to sit next to Rupert Murdoch in class and describes him then as being a socialist!
Dad’s tennis took him to Eastbourne as Peter mentioned which was no mean accomplishment. He played waterpolo in the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games and at one stage was named as a member of the world’s best team – the only Australian to be so selected. He was famously photographed by the Sun tending to an injured player during the fiery Russia v Hungary match in 1956.
In the 60s and 70s Dad worked hard and built up his medical practice to be the biggest practice in town and Mum recounted the other day for the first time (Dad never told us) the story of how Bob Ansett came to see him. Bob had asked around and found out that Dad was the busiest ophthalmologist so it was to him he came reasoning that the busiest is probably the best. He continued to play tennis and water polo with his mates until he simply decided not to.
Mum met Dad in 1953 at an intervarsity in Brisbane where they were both competing. They married in 1958, their 55th anniversary being 4th January this year. They lived in a flat in Armadale before leaving for the wide open spaces of Camberwell until 1996 when the move was made to Port Melbourne. Dad was attracted to the area by the initial idea of canals from the development into the bay where he could putter about his in his boat and fish. From 1962 we had the house at Anglesea which survived the 1967 bushfires. A new house was later built over the road and it was reduced to rubble on Ash Wednesday 1983. The current place rose up in time for Christmas that year. He’d spend time on the beach and out the back where they’re big and green with sometimes only me, Garth Manton and Huey for company. He enjoyed being at the barbeque which he’d sit at for hours on end even in the freezing cold. Fishing in his boat with Larry Elam and Mal Seccull drinking many of those large cans of Fosters known as depth chargers; gar fishing at Roadknight as Andrew mentioned and sometimes taking us up the Anglesea River or out to sea in the tinny, all properly be-lifejacketed in his safety first way. He loved Anglesea and I am sure when he left to come back to town on 16th January this year he knew he’d never go back.
When we were little kids we’d get into bed with Dad on weekend mornings and he’d tell us about the fantabulous adventures of Mary and Jackie, characters whose stories he made up as he went along. We spent time in the pool and occasionally he’d come with us to swimming at the Camberwell or Ashburton pools or play tennis with us at Kooyong, though not often. We would go to the old South Pacific – where the sun burnt the sand and therefore your feet and the air reeked of Coppertone – where he played water polo and we’d dare ourselves to jump into the deep wary of the sharks on the other side of the cage.
Dad was keen on seat belts in the car before they became mandatory. He gave us fluoride tablets before the water was fluoridated. He did fun things including his magic-moo trick when he’d produce blocks of chocolate from under the seat on the way to Anglesea. On numerous occasions we’d be on the road and he’d flap his arms and say we were Benzing Along. Once he flapped his arms really hard and said we were about to do the ton: 100mph on the Geelong Road which was exciting and naughty.
We had family trips to Manly when we were little – firstly because I had come home from school and whinged that I’d never been on a plane – and then to Surfers andMooloolaba from time to time. Our last family holiday was to Hawaii in 1976 when Dad went to a medical conference.
Dad rarely came to watch any of us play sport. Before we headed off to tennis or swimming or netball or whatever he’d simply saythink of your father there’s only one place to be. We all knew what that meant. He would occasionally come to watch me and Peter at our national championships. In 1984 Mum came to watch me in Tasmania and he went to the Gold Coast to watch Peter. As he bought Peter a kayak he put in money to enable me and Sue Chapman to row in our own wonderful pair with great success. He came to both Olympic Games and as Peter has said Dad couldn’t bear to watch our races. In my case he had to ask Patsy Patten how we’d gone. We had fundraising and homecoming events for the Games here at Kooyong and they were such happy occasions. It is different to be here for something not so happy.
He was very proud when our family was acknowledged as the only one in Australia to have had 3 Olympians in 3 different sports. He would have been just as pleased to know what John Coates AOC President has written to me: As a twice Olympian and father of two Olympic medallists John will not only be remembered for the fine man he was but also in Australian Olympic history as patriarch of one our greatest Olympic families
Dad sold his medical practice in 2000 without a plan. The last 12 years were effectively wasted. He spent much time on his computer reading blogs and newsletters and emailing jokes to and from friends. It is apparent, having used his computer since he died, that he was using 2 fingers with version 1 of windows – we now understand why he spent all day at the bloody thing. He was also a great reader and those 2 occupations consumed most of his time. He loved world war 2 books and it was with sadness that I walked past the airport shopthat always had a good stock the week before he died knowing there was no point me going to check out what he might like.
It is sad that Dad didn’t take advantage of his new time to use all the skills and experiences he had accumulated over the years in sport and medicine or to take part in the café and beach life of Port Melbourne. He was president of Kooyong from 1980 to 1984 (I loved being able to use the presidential carpark to watch the Open). He was the leader of Kooyong for its Members which Terry has spoken about. When we were at Camberwell he was behind a group that lobbied against the development of flats. He was tempted to stand for Hawthorn in the 70s but his shyness, plus a plunge in income, in the end stopped him from taking that step. With John Cain and Nigel Gray he conspired to work to reduce the incidence of smoking the results of which we continue to see. (Catherine got short shrift when she and Jenny Ramsden were sprung having a fag one day). He became enthused about a beach saving product called Seascape and travelled to Cape Hatteras to research it. He lobbied the shire council at Anglesea to keep the old reservoir full of water for fire fighting purposes. He saved the sight and lives of many of his friends, all without fanfare. But with retirement and no plan all of this activity came to a full stop.
Whilst Dad didn’t show us much overt affection there was no doubt that he loved his dogs. Firstly Tiggott, then Tiggotty Two and lastly Linka and Maya the golden retrievers. He just loved the impudent, large and lazy Linky. A favourite memory is being at Miles Better Beach: we would take the dogs 100m down the beach and Dad would stand up and wave his arms over his head and the dogs would tear back to him so happy to see him and he them. That’s why they were in the death notice so please be relieved if you thought there were 2 dead children out there somewhere. He always called the dogs by their names but rarely us. I don’t think he ever called me Margot but forever M. Catherine has as she said was always Lamby and Peter WBB (World’s Best Boy) when young. In public he would call Mum Elizabeth but at home she was always Ya Mother , Loved One or Adored but mostly just Loved.
Dad was as he was, a function of his dysfunctional upbringing. A shy man but one with enormous talent and application, a friend to many and one who once loved a party, having Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt on out loud and even rock concerts including the Beatles in 1964. He hated his height for some reason and as he got older seemed to become less able to deal with little old ladies coming up to him at Probus saying ooh you’re so tall. The only time his height was unremarkable was when he was at rowing regattas.
During his retirement he began to withdraw more and more and the decline probably began about 4 years ago. It was then that he and mum stopped going to Noosa for their annual few weeks. The 4WD adventures which they both loved had ceased some time before that.
Dad would not have lived as long as he did without mum and not just since he has been crook. They both knew that. Mum has always been there putting up with his good and bad, the drinking and sometimes the horrible. He would have been a sadder and lonelier man without her energy, enthusiasm, tolerance and when it came to the final crunch her ability to ensure that his every need and demand were met. She has truly been amazing and I am sure he knew it and appreciated it even if it was not within him to say it out loud more than occasionally over the past 60 years.
In many ways Dad has been absent for some time. He was the only Dad I had and I just wish that his last few years could have been happier and more fulfilled though he was the master of his own fate and didn’t bother with the dictum doctor heal thyself.. I am proud to say that this successful, handsome, generous and distinguished man, who acted without hubris so often and who provided so well for us was my father. I am very sad he is gone and miss very much the idea of Dad as he was in his best years which could’ve, would’ve , should’ve been that Dad to the end – for his sake. Had he hada last word he would no doubt have said what he always said when exiting an occasion “I am not here”.
He is not here.