for Jade Young: 'Our lives have been fractured, there will be no back to normal', by mother Elizabeth Young - 2024

23 April 2024, Sydney Australia

Support the GoFundMe set up for Jade’s family here.

I was once a high school English teacher. I particularly enjoyed encouraging my students to write. "Write from your life experience," I would tell them.

You are about to hear something I have written from my life experience.

I would like you to listen, I want Australia to listen. I warn you there are references to brutal facts.

My glorious, loving, soft-hearted, hardworking daughter was murdered on April 13 while shopping for a birthday present for a child’s party the next day. How ordinary.

This is Westfield Bondi Junction, in Sydney, Australia, on a Saturday afternoon amongst hundreds of other people.

My youngest granddaughter, aged 9, would have been skipping alongside her, chatting about this and that and nothing. I know because I have shopped with her many times.

And then at 3.20ish Jade Young was attacked and killed outright, in front of her daughter.

Her daughter knew something bad had happened because Mummy had the twisted ugly face she made when she didn’t like something, uttered "Ooof" and was gone.

In an instant, gone from a nine-year-old’s life, from a near 14-year-old’s life, from the life Jade and her husband Noel had slowly and carefully built for their girls over the last 15 or so years. Gone from my life, my husband’s, her beloved brother Peter’s life, her aunts', uncles', cousins', friends', work colleagues'.

Jade was not a centre-of-attention girl. She did well at school, was a wonderful swimmer, a hopeless T-baller. Like me she didn’t like sand. Sadly Premier Minns, respectfully, she never patrolled Bronte beach on a January morning. Perhaps the cafe for a cappuccino? She was a splendid architect, a loving friend, a gentle, soft-hearted mother, a fabulous generous daughter, a sucker for a newly acquired schnoodle, Teddy, who, might I add, behaved perfectly at the vigil.

In a matter of moments on a sunny Wollongong Saturday afternoon, my husband and I were wrenched out of a quiet retirement after 40 years of working, uprooted into a world of co-parenting two beloved, vulnerable, traumatised girls.

We are so lucky that Jade and Noel were already surrounded by wonderful wonderful family, friends and neighbours who have embraced us, are supporting us; hugging, laughing, howling, feeding us, driving us, playing with the children, building Lego, persuading the youngest to eat, checking the oldest daughter has actually eaten something other than sour lollies and grapes.

Our lives have been fractured, there will be no back to normal. There is no normal for us now.

Solace was spoken of at Sunday’s vigil. Believe me, there is no solace.

I want to thank the NSW police who have helped and supported us; they have been impressive, particularly Leah Collins.

I also thank Westfield Bondi Junction for allowing me to kneel sobbing and incoherent with grief, where my beautiful Jade died.

I thank the magnificent Bronte Surf Club members who have been holding us close and weeping with us.

I thank a teacher, Leanne, who took my granddaughter who was with her mother in the moments after.

I thank those who have generously responded to this murderous attack on my daughter, through donations to Jade's GoFundMe page.

I thank Frog and Ben whose particular skills have left me and our son PJ with a permanent, beautiful reminder of my child, his Gehgeh.

I thank those who attended the vigil. I found a moment of wonderful spirituality In the haunting and ancient notes of the didgeridoo.

I thank the Sydney and Australia-wide well-wishers for their condolences, their flowers, and their tears. But, I want more.

My husband and I are old, we have health problems, but we will dedicate the remainder of our lives to our grandchildren and to our magnificent son-in-law. He has us alongside, Grammy and Grampy, alongside, for better, for worse but the reality is, HE is now responsible for raising two girls without the support of a partner. He will somehow have to weave into an already busy work life, the needs of the girls, school lunches, parent meetings at school, ballet, swimming lessons, shopping for birthday presents. Ordinary things.

Never again do I want to read the words 'tragic' or 'tragedy' associated with the perpetrator of the murder of my daughter.

He came prepared. He had intention. He was a killer who slipped past Westfield security, making a shopping centre the most dangerous place on earth for Jade.

I want to know that my glorious granddaughters never go without as a result of this catastrophic attack.

I want society, neighbourhoods, individuals, clubs, businesses, local, state and federal governments to step up and ensure the family are financially secure.

The flowers are beautiful; I appreciated the sombre faces in the mall when I visited on Monday; I love the meals, the hugs, the lowered flags, even Karen the giraffe. I truly appreciate the genuine responses from the police and Westfield powers-that be.

I will never again laugh and chat with my beautiful Jade, a superb young woman whose only flaw was that she was softhearted and couldn’t always decide what sandwich to order at Julian’s or which of JPs delicious ice cream flavours to try this time.

I am heart fractured and angry; I am exhausted and scared of the future.

I want more than five minutes of disingenuous, anodyne words from politicians, I want more than the three days of news coverage, before something else made the headlines.

On a personal level, I want Jade’s girls to grow up believing there is security, goodness and love in the world.

But also, on another level, I want politicians, both federal and state, to address the gaps in mental healthcare to make it a safer world, for our girls and all Australians.

I was born in 1950, the Chinese year of the Tiger. I promise you I am going to show that creature’s ferocity and tenacity. I am a mother tiger and I will not let this terrible attack on my precious daughter simply become short-term fodder for politicians or the media.

This is not about Australians feeling sad and sorrowful for the brief period of a news cycle — this tragic week will never end for us, this murder of a mother, wife, daughter, friend, business partner, has changed the trajectory of so many people for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.

For Giovanna Manna: 'The plain evidence, in those hands, of a long life', by son Santo Manna - 2024

2 February 2024, Montreal, Canada

Giovanna’s son Santo delivered the following eulogy in Italian and English. We will post an all-English version first, and then the bilingual speech below that.

12 years ago I stood before you in this church, on the occasion of my father Pasquale’s funeral.

Today I do the same, on the occasion of my mother Giovanna’s. Their life together was a love story, an immigrant love story, at that.

 You cannot tell his story without telling hers, and vice versa. 

 Their lives were intertwined.

***

They met in Sicily in the mid 1950s – in Santa Lucia del Mela, near where they were born, she in 1931 and he a year later.

She had already rejected several suitors – one of them, as she relayed to my sister, because he wasn’t nice to his mother.

Pasquale was smitten – he proposed to her, and she accepted, but there was one problem – his family was so large, and so poor, that there was no way his parents could afford a proper wedding. 

So, as was his character, he did what he thought was best for his family – he asked her to elope, and leave together for Switzerland to start a new life together.

She was devastated – she had looked forward to a traditional Sicilian wedding, and her bridal dress was ready. 

Yet, she accepted. 

All it took was his beaming smile, his gentle and kind demeanor, and his beautiful blue eyes, for her to take the leap. 

That, and how nicely he treated his mother.

They were married in December 1959, and from then on, they were inseparable.

They lived in Vevey for 7 years, where my sisters were born.  And in 1967 they crossed the ocean to settle here in Montreal, and welcomed me into the world.

And here is where they built their lives and family.

It was not without hardship. 

Soon after arriving in Montreal, they found themselves in dire straits and my dad, disillusioned, starting planning to return to Europe. 

They were saved by the kindness of the Sciotto family, and of my late godmother Biagina, who took all of us in until my parents could get back on their feet, and in whose home on Hurteau I was born in 1968. 

I mentioned it in 2012, and I’ll say it here again, that was an act of selfless love if there ever was one – 10 of us, including 6 kids ranging from newborn to 19-year old, all crammed into that duplex apartment for close to a year.

Tony is here with us today, the last surviving family member, and his presence is a comfort to us.

***

With the rest of my parents’ immediate families still back in Sicily, the Sciottos would  become our family in Montreal. 

And so did the rest of our paesani from Santa Lucia – the Amicos, with whom we spent so many Christmases together,  the Liparis and Salvadores, the Andaloros, Giannones and Boggias, the Rapazzos and Siracusas.

This Messinese community, our comare and compare, were a source of support for my parents and helped them get through the hard times – while creating a loving extended family for me and my sisters.

And my parents reciprocated, always striving to maintain and strengthen the bonds formed within that community, and offering its members support whenever needed.

***

My parents lives were defined by an intense LOVE for their family, and a stubborn resolve to make our lives better no matter what it took. 

And that was obvious, in the way that my mother lived her life.

There was her WORK ETHIC.  To put food on the table, she worked HARD – as a cleaning lady at Place Ville Marie in the 70s, at the button factory in Ville Emard, or later on at El Pro in Cote St Paul making leather purses. 

She worked tirelessly, and they saved every penny, for us.

She was ASSERTIVE.  My dad was a softie, but Giovanna was a tough cookie, fiercely protective of her family and children, and didn’t suffer fools. 

On one occasion, some mean kid down the block hit my sister Nancy – my mom found out and confronted him, and he never dared bother any of us again. 

She was STRONG.  That came from her mother Anna, who would walk miles with heavy sticks on her back in the old country. 

Then there was her sharp intellect and wit, and SENSE OF HUMOR, which she inherited from her father Domenico, who was jovial as can be.  He didn’t just ask my grandmother for dinner, he would say “Piripi Piripo, pesce stoccu vodiu io”.  She had that same gift, and often left us in stitches.

And last but not least, she expressed her love through her CUISINE. 

There were the Sicilian arancini – rice balls, with the mozzarella, Bolognese sauce, carrot and pea filling.

But especially, her famous and delicious meatballs – somehow, she managed it so that the very center of each meatball was juicy and moist.

As a first-born Sicilian son, I was shall we say just a tad spoiled, and my mother doted on me.

At the age of 15, I attended a sweet 16 birthday party, and succumbed to peer pressure and drank beer.  A bit too much unfortunately.  I was brought home and stumbled into the house, with my parents and my sister Anna, now awake, watching.  As I somehow made my way to my room and collapsed on the bed, my mom was next to me the whole way, and she sat down next to me on the bed, with grave concern.  A bucket was nearby for obvious reasons, some retching took place. 

Now my mom was very religious.  And at that moment, I said probably the worst words I should have said to her… “Pregge per me, mamma” – “Pray for me, mom”.

***

 She always had the support of our compare and compare in the close-knit Santa Lucia expat community.

But her rock, the constant in her life, was Pasquale.  They were a team.

Until 2012, when he was no longer there.

My father passed away on April 5th that year, and by September my mother had withered away. 

Not eating, suffering from depression, doubting her ability to go on without him, she had lost her will to live.

Until later that fall, when a little kitten, white with black spots, came into her life thanks to my sister Anna – she named him Bianco, and he gave her a reason to go on.

And she did.  She never went a day without missing my dad, but she managed, kept in touch with family and friends, and enjoyed family gatherings.

For more than a decade she lived alone in the house on Giguere, until the age of 92.

But she was never truly alone.

It was the constant devotion and attention of my sisters, Anna and Nancy, that sustained her, especially as old age started to take its toll. 

I want to recognize them here, along with our eldest niece Sabrina – for all that they did to ensure our mother felt cherished and loved – they acted selflessly, and so often at the expense of their own lives and families.

Now you can start to reclaim your lives, comforted in knowing that you made hers so much better.  You can let go now.

***

Santo with his mother Giovanna

 My mother’s decline slowly set in – starting with Covid, which was so difficult for everyone. 

Then her Alzheimer’s began to take root, and her memory, always sharp and precise, began to suffer. 

Her physical strength, always a point of pride for her, began to desert her.

She suffered from anxiety, and fear set in, including of being alone at night.

When your strengths become weaknesses, when the independence you have known your whole life is gone, you cease being you. 

And that’s what happened to Giovanna – and it led to her no longer being able to stay in her home – she spent the last 10 months of her life in a nursing home. 

It was a nice suburban home in Beaconsfield, and she had all the comforts she needed, but it signaled the beginning of the end.

Her health deteriorated over the last month or so, to the point where she wasn’t even able to walk without great difficulty. 

We brought her to the hospital on Sunday and were given the sobering news that she didn’t have long to live.

We caressed and comforted her, but looking into her eyes, it felt like she was already somewhere else.

I held her hands, and examined them closely – I had done the same with my father shortly before his death, in the palliative care ward at the Montreal General.

There were the creases and wrinkles, the callouses and moles, the scars, all accumulated over the years. 

The plain evidence, in those hands, of a long life – a life of hard work, and sacrifice. 

And the ring they each wore, a reminder of their bond of love. 

A love that endured long after my father’s passing, long after she could no longer clasp his hand, though she prayed for that moment when it would happen again.

Now, her prayers are answered. 

As my niece Sabrina envisioned, they are walking together, hand in hand, on their new journey.

They are in God’s hands now. 

 You can read Santo’s 2012 eulogy for his father, Pasquale Manna here

Here is the bilingual version of the eulogy for Giovanna Manna, 27 January 1931 - 29 January 2024

For Bill Maher: 'Man of the Mallee', by daughter Louise Schaap - 2021

16 July 2021, Swan Hill Catholic Church, Victoria, Australia

The title is a play on words to honour the family ancestry of Thomas Francis Meagher’s speech ‘Meagher of the Sword’ (Dublin, 1846) and my father’s one true love, the Mallee. The speech was to be delivered to a full church of 200 people. However the evening prior saw a Victorian lockdown announced. Only ten people were able to attend in person.

We are here to honour Bill Maher, born 3rd May 1941 in Swan Hill, The second child to Thomas Francis Maher and his wife Theresa, brother to Bernie, Garry, Peter and Jimmy,  The husband of Lesley, The father to Myself, Michelle, Phillip and Hayden, father in law for  David, Greg, Kelly and Amanda. Grandfather to Michael, Bridie, Archer, Percy, Elroy, Barnaby, Ruby, Cleo and Matilda.

This is an opportunity to pay tribute to Bill. We are joined together for this one time to share what we know about Bill, and it is a privilege to be able to lean on each other for a single day, being supported in the common thread of knowing this man.

Bill was a Man of the Mallee. We all know one. They don’t talk much, in between hard work, they stand around in the shade, contemplate conservative politics, whistle at a dog, lean on some machinery, swish away the flies and observe the horizon. A man not out for extensive conversations yet he was willing to toil, hammer, weld, thread, drive, tinker, lift, push, pull, dig, lug, wait, fix, wrench, sort, move = many vital farm tasks that generate content. Nothing is wasted in the Mallee, the resourcefulness is ingrained.

He was a man that was born into the love of his life, the Mallee. A life long relationship with a land, that offers more than the occasional dust storm. It began for Bill with a pioneering spirit, clearing Mallee scrub by hand, bare back horse rides to the dirt floor Pira Primary School, where at lunch times he fed the horse before himself and killed snakes at the classroom door.  He earned his stripes with learning the Mallee landscape, a country that does not produce “easy” whereby you couldn’t shy away from enduring all the challenges, a land that looked impossible to farm to anyone who doesn’t understand how to calculate its seasons and soil. He took it from teams of Clydesdales pulling stump jump ploughs to GPS tractors and headers.

This Man of the Mallee was resourceful. To the point of being an unqualified mechanical engineer. He knew how to make things for his beloved country. No CAD drawings, just a plan inside his head of what was needed, some tools and materials and away he would go.

Amongst his curated objects were trailers, field bins, incinerator, sheds, ploughs, gates, fences, tanks

Any Man of the Mallee welcomes rain. They watch the sky daily for it. A network of channels and dams drip fed what rain could be collected. And Bill’s leadership, as with so many key community initiatives, paved the way for the Mallee pipeline. Those tanks and taps networked across the Mallee we see today are just part of his legacy.  Strangely as a Man of the Mallee who yearned for and  thrived when water was abundant, he was not big on swimming, which meant he had only one pair of togs for his whole life. Once he outgrew them, his swimming days were over.

Farming lived with him 24/7 and a comfy chair for a nap, a black tea and a bit of cake gave him the occasional spell from it. The ultimate treat would be a steaming plate of well cooked tripe. His love for the Mallee gave him the greatest return on his sweat, time and energy. This meant he always seemed to be doing something, somewhere.

Up the shed

On the tractor

In the Ute

Down the paddock

Working on the truck

Rounding up the sheep

On the header

Driving the truck

Loading up the truck

Getting a load to the Saleyards

At the silo

Fixing a plough

Bogging the tractor

Out the back paddock

Digging a hole

Fixing the driveway

Welding up a new idea

At the dam

Near the gate

Sorting out a vehicle

Marking lambs

Transporting grain

Spraying crops

Baling wool

Dipping the sheep

Sewing a crop

Checking the rain gauge

Fixing a fence

For a farmer, he had his ways of talking. He would do any Aussie proud with

“Wig Whom for a Gooses Bridle”

“Same age as my tongue, a little older than my teeth”

“3 on the tree”

“4 on the floor”

“out whoop whoop”

“pull the wool over your eyes”

“burn a hole in your pocket”

“hit the frog and toad”

“don’t know him from a bar of soap”

“put a sock in it”

“ya got buckleys”

“wrap your laughing gear around that”

“flat out like a lizard drinking water”

“that’s the way the cookie crumbles”

“carrying on like a pork chop”

“fair crack of the whip”

“hold ya horses”

“not the sharpest tool in the shed”

“See you later alligator”

“fitter than a Mallee Bull"

"go easy"

“call me whatever you like, just dont call me late for dinner”

For a Dad he also nailed the obligatory Dad jokes on cue.

●        "I'm so good at sleeping, I can do it with my eyes closed!"

●        "How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it."

●        What time did the man go to the dentist? Tooth hurt-y.

●        "Why did Johnny get fired from the banana factory? He kept throwing away the bent ones."

●        "What did the zero say to the eight?" "That belt looks good on you.

●        Kid: I'm hungry. Dad: Hi hungry, I'm Dad!

When he did venture beyond the farm gate he would drive some style of Holden (or perhaps a mustard Ute) to go play footy, or perhaps tennis in his younger days, fight fires (where every time I witnessed him silently gather himself at the call of someone else’s emergency, take the esky of water and go without any resistance or complaining towards an unknown danger so as to help others in need and return covered in soot and dust without a word to say), fly planes, put kids on a bus, check the mail in Nyah West, go to a meeting, usually as Chair, anywhere or any time.

Also beyond the farm gate, this Man of the Mallee took action with kindness and effort to show the world what he cared about. For his community and the Mallee he sought ways to make it better, so others could benefit. He gained personal fulfilment by being prepared to be a leader who aimed to have the best for what he cared about the most. There are many here who know these benefits, and I encourage you to share these rich achievements, on this day, so they are not lost. Let me share some examples

The highest leadership you could have is to be a leader of your Mallee. As Mayor, he represented the Mallee in China, France and Japan. He heavily invested time, energy and money to take any opportunity to promote the Mallee as Councillor and Mayor. His ambitions went beyond the Mallee boundaries, where he stretched his leadership up to a state political level, as a national party and independent candidate for the region and studying at Churchill University, Gippsland.

Dad knew how important rail transport was to the Mallee. He had significant conversations to save the swan hill train line from closure. By going to Melbourne to meet with the then Labor Transport Minister, whom he referred to as Snappy Tom, @ 1987, whereby he overturned plans to close the Swan Hill line. You know the train lines weren’t just transport to Bill. Dad loved flying, his pilot’s licence and involvement at the Mid Murray Flying Club took him over the Mallee and interstate, he used the trainline to navigate, moreso than a map, which was fine until flood waters covered the tracks. The saved vline service still runs in and out of the Mallee.

So lets celebrate this Man of the Mallee. He shaped his life around it and for it.  I encourage you to share your own stories of what you know of this Man from the Mallee. Talk about the Mallee’s hidden blueprint on it’s men, express the care for this place in the world, muster as much kindness as you can so as to show off your love for where you belong.

So Dad as a Man of the Mallee, who mastered this world with passion and strength, it is fitting you will be returned to its soil where The Mallee will have the man.

For John Cordner: 'My father was a VERY good man', by Geoff Cordner - 2017

January 2017, Rowville Golf Club, Melbourne, Australia

If I was to tell you today that my father was a great man I suspect – in fact I’m certain – he would be uncomfortable with that. Apart from his natural humility, I think he would suggest greatness is a term that ought be reserved for those who’ve saved thousands of lives, or changed the course of history in some important field of human endeavour.

So today, of all days, I guess I should defer to my father's view. I hope Dad that makes up, at least to some extent, for all of those many occasions in the past when I didn’t.

But if the next best thing to being a great man is being a good man, and if the measure of a good man is his ability to positively influence the overwhelming majority of the people he comes into contact with throughout the course of his life, then I feel very confident in saying that my father was a VERY good man.

How do we do that? How do we have a positive influence on those we come into contact with? What was it that Dad did to qualify him so clearly in my mind as a very good man.

One of the most significant things was his ability to make the people around him feel that they were important; that their lives and their opinions mattered.

You’ve already heard from my sister Diedre about how Dad was able to do this with his own family. I’d just add one further recollection to what has been said to you so far on that subject. My father was a very gifted storyteller. And what a difference it makes as a child to have stories told to you that don’t come from a book, that have never been told to anyone else before, and that are therefore accompanied by the pictures we create in our own imaginations. My father's most popular stories, told to his children and grandchildren over many decades, centred around the characters of Woggie the Snoggie, Wiggy the baby Snoggie, their faithful off‑sider Flip Flap, and the unspeakably evil Gremlin Goblin. Not only were these characters vivid, and wonderfully conceived, but whenever a "Woggie the Snoggie" story was told, the listener would himself or herself be a character in it, and that story would be custom-tailored to their age and interests.

What better way for a sports-mad young boy to fall asleep than with visions of having been selected from obscurity to represent Australia at the SCG, only to hit the winning runs in the deciding Ashes Test match, or to be plucked from the crowd during the ¾ time huddle to kick the match-winning goal for the Melbourne Demons at the MCG in the Grand Final.

Nothing was improbable, let alone impossible, when Dad was telling bedtime stories.

And my father's ability to make people feel important wasn’t confined to members of his own family. So many of you here wrote and spoke to us of this very quality in the days following his death, and about how good he was at giving you his undivided attention, and taking a genuine interest in your lives.

At the peak of his powers my father knew a lot about a lot of things. And if you were prepared to listen, he was more than willing to give you an extract from that vast library of accumulated knowledge and wisdom.

That said, conversation with Dad was never a one-way street.

Unless of course you were a teenager who'd drunk considerably more than was good for him. But more about that later

Dad was always interested to hear what the other person had to say, and to find out what was important in their life.

The photo you see here emphasises this point. Dad worked for many years in an office building in Walker St, North Sydney. As my brother Ian has told you, he was the Managing Director of an international company whose Australian management team were based in those offices. The man with the moustache, whose name was Arthur, was the car parking attendant in the building where my father worked. When Arthur got married he invited my Dad, and my Mum, to attend his wedding. Was the wedding full of business people who worked in that office building? Almost certainly not. Did Arthur invite Dad out of some sense of gratitude towards his biggest tipper? Definitely not. Arthur asked Dad to share one of the most important events in his life because Dad had made a real and genuine connection with a man with whom, looking from the outside, you might think he had absolutely nothing in common.

But Dad didn’t care who you were, how much money you had, what school you went to, or what you did for a living. He didn’t care whether you were male or female, Australian or foreign-born, straight or gay, sporty, arty or neither.

He would listen to you, and treat you with the respect you deserved, regardless of any of those things.

This is a photo of the attendees at a Senior Management course conducted at The Australian Administrative Staff College just outside of Melbourne in the latter part of 1968. Most of the 55 participants were Australians, but there were some overseas delegates. Towards the end of the course Dad invited one of those international visitors to our house to meet our family, and for a day’s outing to the Healesville Sanctuary, a couple of hours drive out of Melbourne. That man’s name was Frank Nkhoma. Frank worked for the Zambian Government, and you can see him in the 2nd row from the front, 5th from the left.

I was 5½ years old at the time, and Frank looked different to anyone I’d ever seen. Indeed I suspect most of the attendees at that Management Course had never met an African man before. Even though Frank and Dad were not in the same group at the Staff College they became friends. Looking back, it is not hard to see why. Frank radiated an extraordinarily warm and generous spirit. When he smiled, and said to me in that deep charismatic voice of his “You are a very good reader Geoffrey” I felt ten feet tall. I still occasionally try to emulate that voice of Frank’s today when praising my own boys. I have never forgotten him, and I hope I never will. Dad extending the hand of friendship to Frank, and Frank extending the hand of friendship to me: I now realise these were life–defining events for that 5-year old boy.

Not too many years ago I asked my father about Frank. He confessed that they had not kept in contact after Frank returned to Zambia, although Dad had written a letter to him which went unanswered. We didn’t have Facebook or email back then of course, and I suspect the mail system in Zambia may have been less than ideal at that time. But as we talked about Frank, and I asked Dad, through an adult’s eyes, about their friendship, he confessed to me that part of the reason he was so determined to make Frank feel welcome in this country, and into his home, was an experience my father had had some years before when he attended MIT in the United States as part of the Foreign Student Summer Project he had been accepted into after receiving the Fulbright Scholarship Ian mentioned earlier.

The Official Report from that Summer Project confirms there were 67 participants from 35 different countries – countries that, remarkably, included India and Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, Israel and Egypt, South Africa and Kenya, Greece and Turkey, as well as Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the UK, and many others.

And this was in 1956, when the state of diplomatic relations between many of these nations was tenuous to say the least.

During the course of the Project the delegates, all of whom were engineers and/or scientists, were taken on visits to factories and laboratories in various parts of the US. On such visits they would travel by bus. On one such occasion the buses transporting the group stopped at a roadside diner to have lunch. However the staff at the diner refused to serve the Asian and African delegates. They didn’t ask the group to leave, they just told those in charge that they would not be serving those members of the group who were not Caucasian.

There was nothing preventing the majority of white-skinned delegates from eating, or getting something to drink. But they chose not to be fed, or watered. Instead, in what was an extraordinary show of solidarity amongst people from all corners of the globe, people of different colours, different cultures, different religions and backgrounds, the entire group rose from their seats and they left the diner together.

Just think for a second about seeing that moment as a scene in a movie – what an incredibly powerful image that would make. And what an inspiring message that group sent that day to those who had allowed prejudice to overshadow their humanity.

Now I don’t want to suggest for a second that my father was solely, or even principally responsible for orchestrating that walk-out all those years ago. But what I do know with certainty is that he wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to be a part of it. Because that’s the kind of man he was.

Which leads me to the second significant way that a good man can positively influence those around him – and that is through the example he sets.

You’ve seen lots of photos today, and you’re going to see plenty more. In many of those photos you’ll see my father holding a drink of some kind, often a glass of wine. He loved his wine – indeed he bottled wine purchased in bulk direct from the vineyard many, many times throughout the second half of his life. He also brewed his own beer, somewhat less successfully, on a number of occasions. So alcohol was always a part of our lives as a family. And yet in the 50 years that I am able to recall I don’t believe I ever saw my father adversely affected by drink.

Not once.

Which is why the conversation I am going to tell you about now resonated so strongly with me at the time.

It's a Sunday morning. I am 17 years of age, and I have awoken at about 7.30am to discover that my bed has not just been slept in, but it has been vomited in. Upon surveying the scene I ascertain there is a conspicuous absence of other likely perpetrators. Albeit gingerly, I determine to accept responsibility. I gather the remnants of my last meal in a bundle of bed linen, and head for the washing machine, confident that I will be able to dispose of the unsavoury evidence before my parents appear.

Unfortunately my mother has chosen this Sunday, of all Sundays, to rise earlier than usual to collect and read the newspaper. She asks me, as I pass her en route to the laundry, what is in my knapsack; which I now notice is dripping ever so slightly onto the kitchen floor. I confess my sins. Mum offers to clean the sheets for me. As a parent of a son in his late teens I now understand why she did that. I wonder however, as she takes my parcel from me, whether she will feel inclined keep this little secret between us.

She does not.

Later that day Dad comes a calling to my room, where I am feigning studious dedication whilst in truth simply nursing a ferocious hangover.

His first serve is moderately paced, but it has some spin on it.

“I hear you had a bit of a problem last night” he says.

I return the serve gently into mid-court.

“Yes” I reply.

Dad places his approach shot deep into my backhand corner.

“Is this the first time this has happened?” he asks.

I am unsure whether he means “Is this the first time you have vomited from drinking too much?”, or “Is this the first time you have vomited in your bed from drinking too much?”

I choose to answer the second question.

“Yes” I say truthfully.

Dad is now at the net, ready to put away the easy volley.

“Right” he says. “Well – the first time it happens that’s an experience. The second time it happens you’re a fool. And the third time – well, if it happens a third time you’ve got a problem”.

It is now clear to me that I have answered the second question, but that Dad was asking the first one. I do some quick calculations in my head. They lead me to the inescapable conclusion that I am a full-fledged alcoholic.

It is game, set and match for me it seems.

Thankfully the passage of time, and a relatively small number of subsequent indiscretions, have allowed me to re-calibrate that initial assessment. But the point is that what Dad said had such an impact upon me because he practiced what he preached. Whatever the issue, he never asked more of us in our lives than he demonstrated in his own.

And although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, what I now realise he was doing was giving me a road map to follow if I wanted to be a good man too.

Now it’s safe to say there have been many times I left that road map in the glovebox. But at the times in my life when I’ve been forced to admit that I am well and truly lost, Dad’s road map has been there for me to refer to. And I’m sure I will refer to it many more times in the years ahead.

There are a couple of other stories I’d like to briefly share that will hopefully reinforce what I have said about the kind of man my father was.

When I was 10 years old Dad put his hand up to coach my team at the Lindfield Cricket Club. We were a rag-tag bunch, without much idea, at least half of us a year too young to be playing in the Under 12 competition. But by season’s end, as much to our own amazement as anyone else’s, we found ourselves semi-finalists. Dad was a big part of that. In his team no-one was more important than anyone else. Everyone was entitled to an opportunity. Those of you who are my age or older will remember that was not the way things were back then. In those days the talented kids did all the batting and bowling, and the rest made up the numbers. But Dad was ahead of his time.

We had a wonderful season. I remember still Dad piling the entire team - yes, the whole 11 of us - into his Ford Fairlane at the end of the last game before Christmas, and taking us down to the local milk bar so he could buy us all an ice cream. If we'd have played the All Blacks that afternoon we'd have had a fair crack at winning back the Bledisloe I reckon. Dad knew full well that if you don't have a team of champions, you're gonna need to build a champion team.

But of course talking the talk is just one part of the equation isn't it?

When I was 17 my father and I played cricket together with the Mosman Vets. Our team sometimes included four players with first-class cricket experience - Dad being one of them, albeit more than 50 years of age by then – along with Allan Border’s future father-in-law. One of my fondest memories from that time is a match in which Dad bowled the final over to the Nawab of Pataudi – a former captain of India with six Test centuries to his credit – with the batting side needing a run a ball to win. As wicketkeeper I had the best seat in the house, watching the two aging champions going toe to toe, with the game coming down to the last ball, and ending in bizarre circumstances. Although on the losing side, Dad shared a beer and a laugh with his opponent afterwards. Like the Nawab, I came away with even greater respect for Dad as a cricketer, and as a man, that afternoon.

When I was about 19 I suffered my first flat tyre. Now I know many of you may find this hard to believe, but I was not always as handy as I am today. When I called Dad at about 1.45am that particular night to ask him for help, there was not a moment of hesitation. I wonder now if he realised when he took the call what a fantastic bonding experience that episode would prove to be – the two of us tripping over one another in the dark on Lane Cove Road, roughly where it now joins the M2. As we sat on the kerb, about 3am by this stage, with the spare tyre securely in place, I remember finally expressing sincere gratitude to my father ‑ for probably the first time during my teenage years, which by then were nearly over.

Dad and I had quite a few things in common. We were both the youngest of four children. In each case our oldest sibling was born in England, 10 years and 2 months before we were born in Melbourne. The siblings closest to us in age – Denis in Dad’s case, Diedre for me ‑ were roughly 5½ years older than us. At his full height Dad was 6 feet 1½ inches, virtually identical to my 187 cm. Dad’s playing weight of 14 stone, which equates to about 89 kilograms, was almost exactly the same as my own. Those happy coincidences have allowed me to wear one of Dad’s suits today, which I am very proud to do. I think it’s also fair to say we were both accident-prone, which goes some way to explaining how I managed to split a substantial hole in the seam of Dad's suit pants just minutes before entering this room today.

Dad and I both married strong, beautiful women who would prove to be our life-long partners and best friends. We both became a father for the final time at the age of 34 years and 3 months. We both appeared on TV quiz shows – twice each. We both saved our very worst golf for those occasions when we played together. We both loved cricket, so much so that we played it into our 50s. And we both had the good fortune to play that wonderful game with our sons – something that has given us immense pleasure.

Over the years, and especially the last three years, Dad and I spoke long and often about each others’ lives. I told him many times in different ways what he meant to me and, right up to the last time I saw him, his pleasure at having me visit him was wholehearted and unreserved. The knowledge that there was nothing left unsaid between us is, as you can imagine, of enormous importance to me now.

One of my father's favourite pieces of verse is a poem called If, by Rudyard Kipling. Having re‑read the poem recently, I understand why Dad rated it so highly. It is all about what it takes to be a good man.

Much as I like Kipling's version, it was not written for my father, or about him. So today, as a final tribute to you Dad, I would like to read an amended version of If; a version composed especially for you.

If you can keep your hair when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on stress;

If you can justify your Scrabble word when all men doubt you, and so achieve a triple letter score for your X;

If you can keep off weight without the need for dieting, and confess your age without the need for lies;

If you can just be envied without ever being hated, despite always looking good, and always talking wise;

If you can paint your dreams – and paint them like a master ‑ and still, with all your gifts, avoid the vanities of fame;

If you can meet with a Nawab, or with a Collingwood supporter, and treat those two extremes of humankind one and the same;

If you can bear to see the well-placed, kicking serve that you’ve delivered returned between the tramlines past your partner at the net;

Or watch the two-foot putt you need to end the match all square slide past the hole without a sign of petulant regret;

If you can, with either bat or ball in hand, with equal sureness, make a yorker of what seemed to all and sundry a full toss;

And if indeed, in any game, no matter what the stakes are, you can lose with grace and never make excuses for your loss;

If of the ones you love you ask no more than you bestow, and in their times of need provide a sympathetic ear;

If loyalty and integrity mean more to you than wealth, and compassion and encouragement are words that hold no fear;

If you have lived a life that’s both constructive and creative; if all this has been your oyster, and if you have glimpsed its pearl;

If when you speak your mind you know that those who hear you listen, you can be sure your time has left its impact on this world;

For more than four score years Dad you led us by example, your guidance and your love has made us stronger, every one;

And if I can be half the man you were while you were with us, then I hope you’ll be as proud a Dad as I am proud a son.

For Bernie Langtry: 'Well done, Trinner. Best on Ground', by son Gary Langtry and daughter Jenny Dean - 2013

26 August 2013, St Michael’s, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia

Dad, Pop, Trinna, Bernie. However you knew him we hope you enjoy the story of Bernard John Langtry.

It will come as no surprise to most here today that Dad’s story will have a strong football influence and so it is that we start with pre-season training.

Bernie’s preseason training started on 8th October 1926 when he arrived at Gurwood St hospital in Wagga as the youngest son of Phil and Mary. Before him Mary, Tom. Kath, Frank and Doughy, so the birth of Bernie made a full household.

Bernie completed his schooling at the ripe old age of 13 in Marrar & Coolamon. He then worked on various jobs including time with his father in the family Stock and Station business.

Later in his early 20’s Bernie, along with his brother Frank, purchased property around Marrar. Eventually, as things evolve, part of that purchase, “Currawong” became the building blocks for Dad’s future.

1st Quarter         We won the toss, siren sounds, the ball is bounced.

Around this time, Bernie was given the nickname Trinner.

No one seems to know how it came about, and there were many variations. Dad had his favourite version but whatever the true one is, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the name stuck.

During this quarter, one Trinner Langtry was eying Norreen McKelvie. Nor was oblivious to all this but Trinner “used to hang around” to ensure that he collected the mail when Nor was working at the Post Office. Their first encounter was at the Wichendon Vale hall dance. They went as single’s and came home as a potential couple in Trin’s car. This was despite the very best effort of Nor’s older brother Squeak, who followed them all the way home to ensure Nor’s safety.

The love affair continued and was sealed by marriage at Coolamon in November 1957. Incidentally the wedding was on a Wednesday morning as the parish priest at the time was far too busy on the weekend with other matters.

This marriage was to last more than 55 years and produced six wonderful children, Terry, Gary Jenny, Mark, Anne-Maree and Helen.

This established a very happy family time in the Langtry household. There were special times. There were challenging times.

There were regular visits from Kath and Mick to collect mushrooms and just be around the farm. Trin worked with Frank and Elitha on the farm and there was much involvement with Tom and Doughy and his older sister Mary who many will know as Sr Benedicta. They were all regular visitors.

2nd Quarter        Marrar 2 points ahead. Trinner’s worried. Kicking to the silos.

Trinner was now establishing himself as a more than handy footballer. Trinner played for Marrar over a period of 13 years, mostly on the wing. He believed his big achievements were being Captain Coach of the 1953 premiership team and a South West League representative player.

However, his football career was much much more than that.

Over his lifetime he was a player for 13 years, Captain Coach for two years, President for three. He was a selector at both club and league level for “who knows how long”, strapper for ten years, gatekeeper and life member of the Marrar Football Club.

Such was his service, he was recognised by the AFL as one of the elite, for having given more than 50 years continuous service to one club. His medallion was presented to him at a special function sponsored by the AFL.

His passion for football was legendary and even more so when you consider that Nor had ABSOLUTELY no interest in the game whatsoever!

However, Nor was at the premiership win of 1965. After the game Trin was EXTREMELY excited after a long drought of near premiership wins. On packing the children into the station wagon after the game, a head count revealed that Trin had 3-month-old Anne-Maree still folded up in the pram and packed into the boot. True story.

Another thing that may not be well known is that Trin took a year off football to assist Nor in her training for the Catholic Church prior to their marriage.

And after football, then there were bowls. And that is a whole new story.

His interests extended naturally to the Marrar Pub.

A number of years ago it was believed that there was a strong likelihood that the historic cricket and football trophies, which reside in the Marrar Hotel may be sold for profit. Pub patrons decided it was time to take matters into their own hands.

The trophies “somehow” were hidden on the farm. For the trouble caused Trin received a visit from the Junee Police. A brief explanation guaranteed the preservation of the trophies and Trinner’s good name.

Bring out the oranges. Its half time.

3rd Quarter         Trinner gets the loose ball from the pack and kicks it forward.

Trin was also a dedicated farmer. He was among the first to grow Canola in the area, which was a forerunner to the many yellow paddocks that we commonly see at this time of the year.

Wherever possible, Trinner was loyal in business. As an example, he maintained each year the buying of stock from the Armstrong stud. A tradition over three generations that has continued for more than 75 years.

Lamb marking was a farming job. It was shared with Trin and his brother Frank. The job would always start off easy enough but would quickly progress to discussions about sport or politics. Then move on to opinions about politics or sport then quickly deteriorate to arguments about anything in general, leading to many unmarked lambs and a complete meltdown of the system.

Long before weather apps, Trin had his own built-in radar. Every morning, regardless of where he was living, he would walk out the front door, assess the situation then walk to the back door, again assess the situation. Then come in to tap the barometer. This ritual happened every day.

Trinner was awarded a long service badge for 50 years continuous service to the Marrar Fire Brigade. Trin loved a good fire and particularly the “clean up” afterwards.

Dad’s lack of mechanical knowledge was well known. Like his good friend Tom Pattison, he was of the belief that a hammer and a shifter could fix most things and what couldn’t be fixed could be sent off to Cliff at the Marrar Garage. Cliff got a lot of work!

There have been many books written on the study of body language. They need not have bothered. All they had to do was turn up and watch Trinner as a spectator at the footy. He must have been exhausted at the end of every game where he was a spectator. He would kick, ride every bump, grimace at every tackle and he would comment about the very doubtful parentage of every umpire.

He tried…. but only with limited success at being a balanced supporter.

All of us kids knew that the timing to get money for lollies and drinks out of Trin at a footy game was crucial.  Ask during the quarter time and half-time breaks, not a chance. Ask while the ball was in play and money to get rid of the kids was guaranteed.

We can’t close the premiership quarter without mentioning some football facts according to Trinner.

·       You can’t trust paid players

·       Football is a wet weather game

·       I doubt the footy club can financially survive

·       Can’t STAND Cootamundra

·       Merger with Coolamon? Not going to happen

4th Quarter         Trins agility on the wing is showing. He’s gotta be a chance for the three votes today!

It was never going to be easy to move trin off the farm and to leave his beloved Marrar. Time goes on and a move to Wagga was inevitable. The move turned out to be a winner.

There have been many fulfilling relationships formed at Settlers village and within the Probus group since their time in Wagga. These relationships for both Trin and Nor have lead to travel, walking groups, coffee mornings and craft, but most importantly incredible support.

Retirement as well was a time for Trin to share quality time with his much-loved Grandchildren.

Time on in the last quarter was not easy.

The challenges in the last few months were eased by the wonderful care at RSL Remembrance Village. And for those very special people who were regular visitors to Dad, we thank you.

The recognition of Trin’s work, family and community involvement is shown by your presence here today.

Well done, Trinner. Best on Ground.

Gary Langtry

For Abigail and Lara Hoy: 'We want to nurture our little babies', by father Aidan Hoy - 2021

29 August 2021, Singapore

Thank you all for joining us in-person or online to celebrate the lives of our daughters, Abigail and Lara. If it was not for the pandemic, we would love to have everyone here with us today.

About two weeks ago, Mandy and I both mentioned to each other that the moment we had been preparing for over the past 8 months was starting to feel… real. That feeling was tinged with some anxiety, but overwhelmingly, it was excitement. Excitement about the two new lives who were about to enter our family.

However, just under seven days ago our lives were turned upside down. The excitement was replaced by shock and grief. The anxiety now threatened to overwhelm us.

We prepared for an unplanned labour 48 hours after our babies’ hearts stopped beating. We were also having to arrange their funerals.

Normally, the beginning of life and its end are separated by decades. And the significance of these events evokes different emotions. Yet Mandy, myself and everyone here, are trying to understand how life and death can overlap so closely, and what it all means.

I have delivered eulogies in the past, but for people much older than Abigail and Lara. I find it a great honour to be asked to reflect on someone’s life, distil down their character and understand the impact they made. But we do not have decades of memories for Abigail and Lara. Fate did not give them a chance to enter the world. Instead, we, everyone here, are left with unfulfilled hopes and dreams for Abigail and Lara.

We are only able to contemplate what kind of people they would be, by sewing together tiny insights into their character. Abigail was cheeky, always restless in the womb. Lara, the more relaxed one of the pair.

And their names. Abigail, which means a father’s joy. Lara, which means protector.

Originally I thought it was a complete, wholesale tragedy that Abigail and Lara would not be able to receive the hopes and dreams of Mandy, myself, our family and our friends. The dreams Mandy had for them to become gold medal athletes, as we watched the Tokyo Olympics. The excitement our families felt about two new granddaughters, in families dominated by grandsons. Likewise, our niece, Ellie, looking forward to playing with girl cousins when she’s currently surrounded by boys.

And all the thought, both practical and emotional, Mandy and I put into preparing for Abigail and Lara’s arrival.

Although this week has been utterly heartbreaking, I can also acknowledge there is another angle to the passing of our little girls. It is incredible that Abigail and Lara were the cause of so much happiness in their short lives.

The outpouring of love and support from our family and friends over the past 7 days, because of Abigail and Lara, is humbling. This is the love and support that Mandy and I receive on behalf of Abigail and Lara.

Make no mistake, Mandy and I are hurting deeply. Even when we seem composed on the surface.

We feel robbed.

This is not fair for our daughters.

We want to nurture our little babies.

But alongside my grief of losing what could have been, I can also cherish what we had, thanks to Abigail and Lara.

A few weeks ago, I said to Mandy that we would look back, and see the time we spent preparing for our daughters’ arrival as one of the happiest of our lives. This remains absolutely true, despite the past seven days.

My little girls, we miss you so much.

We love you so much.

For what you have done, and what you could have been.

We’re so happy we got to hold you.

And be with you for a short time.

We're so happy you got to visit home once.

But we now need to let you rest.

You'll always be our daughters.

You'll never be forgotten.

For James Hoy: 'I still expect to see Dad walk through the front door again', by son Aidan Hoy - 2016

16 May 2016, Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park, Perth, Western Australia

When a loved one passes away, it’s inevitable that you may never have had the opportunity to tell them some things. This must be particularly so, between father and son.

Over the past week, many people have told me about how proud my father was of me. But what Dad doesn’t know, is how proud I was of him.

I’m proud that Dad was Chinese in Australia during a time when Australia was not necessarily so welcoming. He was born in 1946, around the same time his parents received a letter from the government requesting that they depart. But Dad’s birth meant his parents could stay, and he would laugh and boast that he was the saviour of the family’s future in Australia.

These early years are mostly a mystery to me. However, as a child, Dad remembered sitting around warehouses watching his father and other Chinese men while they smoked opium. And up until a few years ago, a Northbridge history website had pictures from the late 1940s of young Jimmy, and his sister, outside of the Chinese furniture factory where their father worked.

But I’m also proud that Dad was staunchly Australian. His first car was an FJ Holden. Someone once said he was one of only a few Chinese playing football and cricket in Perth in the 1960s.

When I accompanied him to the East Perth Football Club rooms after a grand final victory in 2002, one-by-one several gentlemen, of similar vintage to Dad, came over to shake his hand and reminisce about East Perth’s good old days.

I asked him who these blokes were. He laughed and said, “I have no idea”. I can only conclude that the Chinese fellow that frequented the Inglewood and East Perth football scene in the 1960s was probably a novelty at the time.

Dad also cared about Australia in a more sophisticated sense. His grasp of politics was impressive. He read the newspaper every day from cover to cover and watched hours of TV news and current affairs every night. His vintage tight fit t-shirt celebrating Bob Hawke’s 1983 election victory would be the envy of many hip political advisors today. And I’m not sure many brickies bought a copy of former prime minister Paul Keating’s book on Australia’s international relations in the 1990s. But Dad did.

I’m proud that Dad was resilient. For decades he was up at 5am and off to the building site, and rarely did I see him visit a doctor. I once had to pick him up from work Christmas drinks at a bar. After Dad had bought all of his colleagues a round of shots, a young apprentice bricklayer turned to me and said: “I don’t know how your Dad has been doing this every day for 30 years; I’m already over it after 12 months”.

The ultimate test of his resilience was his battle with cancer. Yet he never let it affect his outlook on life, and he calmly shrugged off any concern from others. He was determined to not let his illness get in the way of so many things he wanted to do.

Never did I hear him complain about the medical treatment he received over the years.

Yet, for all of Dad’s strength, he wouldn’t have gotten through the final chapter without the love and support of Linda. And she helped to soften his tough exterior, just a little bit, for which I am very grateful.

I still expect to see Dad walk through the front door again at any moment.

For Ernie Page: 'Ernie Page was Labor to his core', Celebration of Life, by Edwin Plummer - 2018

30 May 2018, Ted Whittle Auditorium, Kingsford, Sydney, NSW, Australia

My sincere condolences to Barbara, to Ernie’s children Harry, Therese, Matthew, Janemaree and Rebecca and to Ernie’s wider family.

It’s an honour to be asked to say a few words here today.

Ernie Page was Labor to his core.

His belief in the values that underpin, and the people who are members of, the great Australian Labor Party was, I think, part of his very being.

It is with that in mind that I want to share with you some of what I believe to be Ernie’s most important public policy achievements,

·       as an Alderman,

·       as a Mayor,

·       as a Member of the NSW Parliament, and

·       as a Minister in the NSW Government.

First, as a member of Waverley Council for a phenomenal 25 years.

One of his lasting, and I believe most significant achievements was to broaden the horizons of local government.

He always believed there was more to local government than just roads, rates and rubbish …. much more.

His vision was clear.

He saw local government as an instrument progressive Labor should use to improve the lives of working people, of ordinary people, and of those who were disadvantaged in our society.

It was one way – and in a local community a very effective way – to promote social justice and equality.

So in Waverley from the 1960s and well into the 1970s – the age of Gough Whitlam and Don Dunstan – he broadened the horizon of local government and in so doing, inspired many activists and future local councillors.

…I know that, because I was one of those inspired.

·       He opened Waverley’s first public library … more on that in a moment.

·       Waverley implemented local government’s first ever affordable housing strategy, to protect the rental housing in which low income residents lived from developers, a first for NSW and a policy future Labor administrations under Barbara Armitage and Paul Pearce were to continue and expand.

·       Council became involved in the provision of child care, its first centre opening in 1976 in Gardiners Road Bondi Junction:

… and I know our former Member for Phillip, Jeannette McHugh, and former Waverly Deputy Mayor and Member of the NSW Legislative Council, Ann Symonds, were leaders in what was then a controversial but now widely accepted and unambiguously necessary area of government activity.

·       Council began directly providing services to support older residents, particularly the frail aged, and children and youth

·       A Community Services Department was established in the council to drive implementation of the community and social agenda within the council administration

·       And Waverley Council started supporting and nurturing the arts, a newfound belief in local government’s role in promoting and celebrating cultural diversity.

And, while he was Member for Waverley, Bondi Beach was saved, quite literally, from the wrecking ball.

A magnificent community-based campaign in the mid-1980s led by Waverley Labor – including Ernie and local councillors – and working with the local Bondi community – repulsed the push by the then Liberal Council to bulldoze the beach front and create, in their words, a high rise “Camelot by the Sea”.

That’s a segue to the Bondi Pavilion, which Ernie passionately supported.

I went down to Bondi on the weekend, and saw that stone tablet in the pavilion foyer, on which is inscribed:

This tablet commemorates the official opening of the Bondi Pavilion Community Centre on 25th June 1978, being the 50th Anniversary of the Pavilion.

Then appear the names:

·       The Honourable Neville Wran QC MP, and

·       Alderman E T Page, BE BComm, Mayor of Waverley

That was 40 years ago, almost to the day.

And as we know, twice since, the community and Waverley Labor have fought to protect the pavilion from privatisation or wholesale commercialisation, and on each occasion successfully.

Turning to Ernie’s time as Minister for Local Government, during Bob Carr’s first Labor Government.

It is my firm belief that Ernie was not only “one of the best” but the best Local Government Minister – and certainly the most popular –this state has ever seen, certainly in my lifetime.

Working then in his ministerial office, along with Paul Tracey and Freda Backes, we saw the local government reform agenda being rolled out.

And if you flick through today’s local government statute book, you will see Ernie’s fingerprints throughout its several hundred pages.

In those four years we saw:

·       Laws to use the rating system to encourage the retention of affordable housing and the protection of high conservation value private land.

·       Laws to require local government to apply the principles of ecologically sustainable development and prepare annual state of the environment reports.

·       Stronger freedom of information laws to ensure residents had open access to council information and council meetings.

·       New laws to significantly strengthen the protection of community land, including public parks and community buildings.

·       New laws to recognise, for the first time, the benefits of local government cooperating and sharing resources regionally.

·       Laws to require councils to exercise their functions consistent with the principles of cultural diversity.

·       Reformed and strengthened companion animals laws

·       New laws to democratise voting in the City of Sydney.

And so on…

I’ll close with what I believe to be perhaps Ernie’s greatest legacy to his local community … Waverley Library.

What he did greatly benefitted the people of Waverley

…of that there is no doubt.

But, more broadly, he showed that public library services and providing free access to books and knowledge was core business for local government.

…and that benefitted the people of NSW.

With his great friend and future Chief Librarian Ron Lander, Ernie bought an old bowling alley in Bondi Junction and turned it into a public library, one that I started visiting as a five year old in 1969 and which, for me, became a window to a wider world.

It was only ever intended it to be a temporary site, so it was a memorable moment when, under Barbara Armitage’s mayoralty, we opened the new purpose-built library in 1999 almost next door, with both Ernie and Ron present as guests of honour.

To give you an idea why Ernie believed so passionately in the social worth of public libraries, I can do no better than quote his own words.

Speaking in the NSW Legislative Assembly on a bill that Ernie argued would dilute guaranteed free access to library resources he said, and I quote:

“Freedom of equity of access to the public library is essential to the democratic process and to the social and economic welfare of the community.  This freedom can be inhibited as much by poverty as by censorship.”

Fine words indeed. He knew well that free access to knowledge promotes equality.

I’ll end where I began….

Ernie Page was Labor to his core

During his long political career, he changed the lives of many in our local community and he changed them for the better.

…we will miss him greatly.

J.R. De Costa: 'The Deafening Silence', Sermon honouring victims of Viscount Air Disaster - 1978

A Deafening Silence - Viscount Air Disaster - 8 September 1978

Rev J.R. De Costa

8 September 1978, Cathedral of St Mary and All Saints, Rhodesia

This speech was made at the funeral service for the massacred survivors of the Viscount air crash in Hunyani by Rev: JR Da Costa. Air Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled passenger flight that was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978, during the Rhodesian Bush War. Soon after Flight 825 took off, a group of ZIPRA guerrillas hit it on its starboard wing with a Soviet-made Strela-2 surface-to-air infrared homing missile. Thirteen passengers survived the crash landing. Ten of those were rounded up and massacred by the insurgents with machine guns. Three people survived.

Clergymen, I am frequently told, should keep out of politics. I thoroughly agree. For this reason, I will not allow politics to be preached in this cathedral. Clergy have to be reconcilers. That is no easy job. A minister of religion who has well-known political views, and allows them to come to the fore, cannot reconcile, but will alienate others, and fail in the chief part of his ministry.

For this reason, I personally am surprised at there being two clergymen in the Executive Council. It is my sincere prayer that they can act as Christ’s ambassadors of reconciliation.

My own ministry began in Ghana, where Kwame Nkrumah preached: "Seek ye first the political kingdom and all these things will be added to you." We know what became of Kwame Nkrumah. We are not to preach a political kingdom, but the kingdom of God.

Clergy are usually in the middle, shot at from both sides. It is not an enviable role. Yet times come when it is necessary to speak out, and in direct and forthright terms, like trumpets with unmistakable notes. I believe that this is one such time.

 Nobody who holds sacred the dignity of human life can be anything but sickened at the events attending the crash of the Viscount Hunyani. Survivors have the greatest call on the sympathy and assistance of every other human being. The horror of the crash was bad enough, but that this should have been compounded by murder of the most savage and treacherous sort leaves us stunned with disbelief and brings revulsion in the minds of anyone deserving the name "human."

This bestiality, worse than anything in recent history, stinks in the nostrils of Heaven. But are we deafened with the voice of protest from nations which call themselves "civilised"? We are not. Like men in the story of the Good Samaritan, they "pass by, on the other side."

One listens for loud condemnation by Dr. David Owen, himself a medical doctor, trained to extend mercy and help to all in need.

One listens and the silence is deafening.

One listens for loud condemnation by the President of the United States, himself a man from the Bible-Baptist belt, and again the silence is deafening.

One listens for loud condemnation by the Pope, by the Chief Rabbi, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, by all who love the name of God.

Again the silence is deafening.

I do not believe in white supremacy. I do not believe in black supremacy either. I do not believe that anyone is better than another, until he has proved himself to be so. I believe that those who govern or who seek to govern must prove themselves worthy of the trust that will be placed in them.

 One looks for real leadership. One finds little in the Western world: how much less in Africa?

 Who is to be blamed for this ghastly episode?

 Like Pontius Pilate, the world may ask "What is truth?" What is to be believed? That depends on what your prejudices will allow you to believe, for then no evidence will convince you otherwise.

 So who is to be blamed?

First, those who fired the guns. Who were they? Youths and men who, as likely as not, were until recently in church schools. This is the first terrible fact. Men who went over to the other side in a few months were so indoctrinated that all they had previously learned was obliterated. How could this happen if they had been given a truly Christian education?

Second, it is common knowledge that in large parts of the world violence is paraded on TV and cinema screens as entertainment. Films about war, murder, violence, rape devil-possession and the like are "good box-office". Peak viewing time is set aside for murderers from Belfast,, Palestine, Europe, Africa and the rest, to speak before an audience of tens of millions. Thugs are given full treatment, as if deserving of respect.

Not so the victims' relations.

Who else is to be blamed?

The United Nations and their church equivalent, the WCC. I am sure they both bear blame in this. Each parade a pseudo-morality which, like all half-truths, is more dangerous than the lie direct. From the safety and comfort of New York and Geneva, high moral attitudes can safely be struck. For us in the sweat, the blood, the suffering, it is somewhat different.

Who else? The churches? Oh yes, I fear so.

For too long, too many people have been allowed to call themselves "believers" when they have been nothing of the kind. Those who believe must act. If you believe the car is going to crash, you attempt to get out. If you believe the house is on fire, you try to get help and move things quickly. If you believe a child has drunk poison, you rush him to the doctor. Belief must bring about action.

Yet churches, even in our own dangerous times, are more than half-empty all the time. We are surrounded by heathens who equate belief in God with the Western way of life. In many war areas, Africans are told to "burn their Bibles". If this call was made to us, what sort of Bibles would be handed in? Would they be dog-eared from constant use; well-thumbed and marked? Would they be pristine in their virgin loveliness, in the same box in which they were first received?

There are tens of millions of all races who call themselves believers, who never enter any house of prayer and praise. Many are folk who scream loudest against communism, yet do not themselves help to defeat these Satanic forces by means of prayer, and praise and religious witness.

 For, make no mistake, if our witness were as it ought to be, men would flock to join our ranks. As it is, we are by-passed by the world, as if irrelevant.

 Is anyone else to be blamed for this ghastly episode near Kariba? I think so.

Politicians throughout the world have made opportunist speeches from time to time. These add to the heap of blameworthiness, for a speech can cause wounds which may take years to heal.

The ghastliness of this ill-fated flight from Kariba will be burned upon our memories for years to come. For others, far from our borders, it is an intellectual matter, not one which affects them deeply. Here is the tragedy!

The especial danger of Marxism is its teaching that human life is cheap, expendable, of less importance than the well-being of the State. But there are men who call themselves Christians who have the same contempt for other human beings, and who treat them as being expendable.

Had we, who claim to love God, shown more real love and understanding, more patience, more trust of others, the churches would not be vilified as they are today. I have nothing but sympathy with those who are here today and whose grief we share. I have nothing but revulsion for the less-than-human act of murder which has so horrified us all.

I have nothing but amazement at the silence of so many of the political leaders of the world. I have nothing but sadness that our churches have failed so badly to practise what we preach. May God forgive us all, and may he bring all those who died so suddenly and unprepared into the light of His glorious presence.

Amen

For Ben Cordner: 'I will miss your uncontainable zest for life', by Geoff Cordner - 2019

11 February 2019, Macquarie Park, Sydney, Australia

I remember vividly at Ben’s 21st birthday party just a few short months ago, as the speeches concluded, and Linda, Ben, Tim and I, were standing arm in arm facing the crowd, I felt a wave of happiness wash over me that was like something I had never ever felt before.  At that moment I truly believed our life as a family was perfect.  We literally had all that we could ever reasonably have asked for.

Then just over two weeks ago our world changed forever.

But it has changed in ways we could never have predicted.  If you read or watch the news, which we haven’t for more than a fortnight, it is tempting to think the world is going to hell in a handcart.  But our experience over this past couple of weeks has been completely the opposite; there is so much goodness in the world it is impossible not to still have hope.  The support we have received from all of you, and from the wider community around us, has made us realise we are not alone in this – we are all in it together.  And there is enormous comfort in that knowledge, and strength too.

The second very important thing we have learned is that, no matter how much we might have loved and admired Ben while he was here - and we loved him with all our hearts – we never actually gave him all the credit he deserved for the person he had become.

The stories we have been told this past fortnight by so many people about aspects of Ben’s life that we didn’t already know about have swelled our hearts even further with pride, and helped us to more fully understand that the pain we are feeling is shared by so many others.  Because Ben touched so many lives while he was here.

It seemed to me that Ben was as happy this year as I have ever seen him.  All aspects of his life seemed to be giving him so much pleasure.  His relationship with Laura, his relationships with us, with his friends, his University course, his work, his sport.  He was saving money, he was planning for the future, he was looking at the entire world around him with that captivating, infectious smile on his face, and it was smiling back at him from all sides.

I am indescribably sad that Ben has died.  But if we had to lose him, then I am so glad I can carry forward with me the knowledge that he was truly truly happy when that happened, and that his life, cruelly short as it was, really meant something to him, and to all of us.

A few memories that I will always treasure:

The way Ben’s tongue, when he was small, seemed too big for his mouth, so that every word spoken was accompanied by a healthy spray of saliva.

Ben’s laugh as a young boy: now I know I might be accused of bias, but I would argue this was the most joyful sound in the history of the world.

Standing in the kitchen at our house about six years ago in tears after something on the TV had triggered a memory of my nephew Daniel, and having Ben come and hug me long and hard until the tears finally ended, and then a bit longer again, without either of us needing to say anything.

The many wonderful hours Ben and I spent putting together the slideshow for my Dad’s Celebration of Life.

The night we spent at the Big Bash just four days before Ben died.  Tim was away on his bus trip, and Ben and I decided at the last minute to go out to Spotless Stadium to watch the Sydney Thunder play.  I remember sitting with Ben that night at the game and feeling like we were just a couple of mates on a night out; like it was the most natural and comfortable thing in the world to be hanging out with your 21-year old son, completely relaxed in each other’s company. 

Ben I am so glad you got your hair cut very short recently, because I will never ever forget the feeling of stroking it as you lay on that hospital bed during the final hours of your extraordinary life, and the love I felt for you as I did that will never leave me.

Ben I will miss you so much.

I already miss seeing you walk out through the kitchen to the bathroom in the morning, one hand on your phone, and the other hand on your junk

I miss the way you called me Papa Bear

I miss the way you filled in the missing answers for me in the cryptic crossword

I miss your razor-sharp wit, and the cut and thrust of our regular repartee

I miss the way when I used a word you hadn’t heard before – like repartee for example – you would repeat the word, and say “Who says that?”

I will miss standing at first slip while you kept wicket, and having you calm me down when some poor unfortunate misfielded, or dropped a catch

I will miss calming you down when you misfielded or dropped a catch

I will miss hearing you say “How Good’s Cricket”

I will miss the fact that we can never play Fambrose again

I will even miss that permanently messy bedroom

I will miss your uncontainable zest for life

And most of all I will miss that beautiful beautiful smile

I love you Ben, and I always will

Geoff also spoke at Ben’s Celebration of Life event, as did Ben’s mother Linda Cordner. Both speeches are on Speakola.

Geoff writes regularly about his son at his blog The Beniverse, You can check out a post like ‘Batting with Ben’

For Ben Cordner: 'He wished he could be an astronaut', by Linda Cordner - 2019

13 February 2019, Epping Boys High School, Sydney, Australia

Where do I begin to tell you the story of my gorgeous son, Ben?  At the beginning. 

He was born two weeks early by caesarean section and was taken to the ICU because of difficulty with his breathing.  After having the operation I was taken to the ward where I was bedridden.  I didn’t see him for nearly two days, and was only given a photo of him by Geoff.  Despite the reassurances from everyone that he was fine, I became paranoid that something dreadful had happened and I was being kept out of the loop.  When he was finally brought down to be with me, I fell in love and bonded immediately, and right then I knew this kid would be something special. 

He was an extremely cheeky and outgoing toddler, always engaging people to look and talk to him.  I met so many people in the aisles of the grocery store, just because he wanted to talk to everyone.  He could go to a McDonalds playground for five minutes and make new friends.  It was always awkward when he would tell me he’d invited them back to our house to continue playing. 

Once both boys started at school the teachers would always comment on how different my two sons were.  At first I thought they were talking about their looks … until the notes started coming home!  I think most of the teachers in primary school loved Ben’s humour and intelligence, but secretly wished he was in a different class. 

Early in Year 6 we were requested to attend a meeting with Ben’s teacher.  He had had the same teacher since the beginning of Year 5.  Ben wasn’t present at the meeting, so as diplomatically as possible, Mrs Schlager told us she liked Ben but he pushed her buttons.  She told us she was a little disappointed that the note she sent home at the end of Year 5, suggesting Ben move to the extension class for his final year, was not taken up.  Geoff and I looked at each other, then back at her.  Both of us at the same time said “What note?”  Ben had read it on the way home and decided then and there we were never getting it.  None of Ben’s closest mates would be in the extension class, so there was no way in hell he was going to be. 

Just backing up a little, when Ben was 9 and Tim was 11 we had dinner at my Mum’s house.  Geoff was at cricket training so it was just the kids, my Mum and myself.  The four of us sat down and started eating at the dining table.  Ben, always such a curious little boy, asked me a question.  The question was “Mum, what’s a blow job?”  While clearing the food from my throat, I looked up at my Mum for support.  My mum placed her knife and fork on the plate, crossed her arms and said to me “This’ll be good”. Thanks Mum!  A million things were going through my head, but I realised the truth might just shock this kid enough to stop him asking such direct questions in the future.  So after a very long pause I told him exactly what it is – to the best of my recollection anyway.  Ben screwed up his face and said “Eww, who’d want a job like that?” 

Twelve months ago Ben asked if I could arrange for him to get a part-time job at my work.  I did question whether he would be an appropriate fit, but then I figured if they didn’t want him they didn’t have to hire him.  He got the job.  Ben and I worked together a lot over the last 12 months – something for which I am now extremely grateful.  We travelled to work in the city on the train, or in the car to Rozelle.  I told him in advance there were some guys his age who worked with me, and they seemed quite nice. Needless to say within a few weeks of working there, Ben was tight with all of them.  Soon after he had a hand in organising a pub crawl, and various themed dress-up nights, with the young guys and girls.  I noticed the other day his Facebook background page shows him on one of those nights out. 

This last year I have been able to watch Ben at close quarters, dealing with work colleagues and passengers of all different ages, and from many walks of life.  I am so proud to say he has exceeded all my expectations.  So much so that I feel a little guilty that I ever doubted him! 

A few days after his death, I got a message from a girl who was in primary school with Ben.  She told me she wasn’t close with Ben, but he was always lovely to be around, and was one of the ONLY kids to stand up for her against bullies.  I am so grateful to have received that message and I am so immensely proud of that little 10 year old boy. 

Our son, Tim has been amazing throughout this whole time, and we are so proud of him.  He has been a tower of strength (literally) and we love him very much.  We’re all suffering at the moment, but the bond he and his brother shared, although understated, was indisputable and unbreakable. 

Tim’s girlfriend, Audrey, has offered endless emotional support to us all.  She has such a gentle, unassuming calmness that has helped us cope with this unimaginable situation, and we thank you Audrey for that. 

Laura, we all love you.  Your relationship with our son was something to behold.  Your bond with Ben was so intense, and his capacity to love you was second to none.  I would always tell people you came as a pair, you never saw one without the other.  The love they shared in the five years of their relationship was so beautiful, and I know Laura that it will live with you forever.

Geoff, you are my rock and I know we will find our way through this.  I must admit I’m not looking forward to a future without Ben, and I know our lives have changed forever.  I love you so much, and know we can do this together, and we will continue to treasure the time we had with Ben forever. 

Ben told us not that long ago, quite seriously, that he wished he could be an astronaut.  He has always been fascinated with planets, galaxies and all that is beyond this world.  I truly believe he has got his wish.  Ben is now up above us, travelling through space, exploring the universe.  The brightest stars shine to remind us that the special people we lose are always with us.

For Ben Cordner: 'I remain in awe of all his wonderful qualities', by Geoff Cordner, Celebration of Life ceremony - 2019

13 February 2019, Epping Boys High School, Sydney, Australia

First of all could I ask you please to express your thanks to Tim O’Brien, to Nic McInerney, and to everyone here at Epping Boys High School who have made today possible.  The support the School has given us over the past two and a half weeks has been nothing short of extraordinary, and that support has been crucial in getting us through that very difficult period.

This place was such an influential part of Ben’s life that there could be, other than perhaps our home, no more appropriate place to hold this Celebration.  And as I look around at the number of people that have gathered today I feel safe in saying we made a wise choice to come here.

When you become a parent, particular as a father of boys, there is more than a little apprehension that comes with that about the responsibility of setting the right example for them.  What I didn’t anticipate, and what has become one of the great joys of my life, is that as our boys transitioned to young men it was them who would be teaching me lessons.
And on that subject, before I go on to talk about Ben, I would like to take a few moments to mention the tall, very handsome young man who spoke just before me.  From a young age Tim has set a wonderful example to his family, his peers, and the world around him about what it means to be a good person.  I have been, and I remain in awe of all his wonderful qualities – his humility, his empathy, his inner strength, that quiet confidence he carries that not once in his entire life, notwithstanding his many talents, have I ever seen descend into arrogance.  More importantly perhaps than any of those things, Tim has demonstrated to me that it is possible to go through your life without ever making an enemy.  Tim, we are so lucky to have you.

And so to Ben.

Back at Christmas time in 2015, which was the year Ben concluded his time here at Epping Boys, I wrote Linda, Tim and Ben a letter trying to explain, as best I could, how grateful I was to have the three of them in my life, and why.  I’m so grateful to Laura and Tim, who were going through Ben’s room a week or so ago, for their discovery that Ben had kept the letter I gave him back then throughout those three intervening years.  In that letter, amongst other things, I listed, for each of the three of them, the qualities I most loved about them.  For Ben, it was these.

I love your passion for the things that are important to you

If Ben decided he was going to do something, then he was all in.  There were no half measures with Ben.  Although this might sometimes have meant that he was a bit like a bull at a gate, most of the time the result of his efforts were outstanding – whether that was organising the Year 10 formal, or putting together and managing a new soccer team, or arranging a special night out with Laura, he was totally committed to the task at hand.

I love the fact that you see the power of knowledge, and that you genuinely love to learn

I truly believe that Ben was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.  And not because he could remember stuff and regurgitate it when required.  But because once he learnt something he really knew and understood it.  And that’s such a significant distinction in my book – the difference between remembering something, and really understanding it.  Ben’s results at Macquarie University in the Advanced Science course that he was undertaking I think support what I’m saying.  His Academic Transcript indicates that of 20 completed subjects in which merit grades were awarded he recorded 15 High Distinctions and 5 Distinctions – no Passes, no Credits – leaving him with a Grade Point Average of 4.0, which is the highest GPA possible. I think this also reinforces my first point; if Ben had a passion for something, as he so obviously did for his University studies, then he would perform at a level that most of us can only aspire to.  And if I might digress for just a moment, I’d like to pay tribute to the staff at Macquarie University, and in particular the Department of Molecular Sciences, for the inspiration they provided to Ben these past three years as he sought to make his mark on the world around him, for the compassion and support they’ve shown to us this past fortnight, and for the extraordinary honour they are affording Ben, of which I believe you will be hearing more shortly.

I love your loyalty to your friends

I don’t think I need to tell you guys and girls here who Ben called “friend” – and there are a lot of you – what you meant to Ben.  I know I don’t need to tell you because you’ve shared with us the way Ben approached his friendships with you.  If you called him in the middle of the night needing a lift home he would be there; if no one else would dance with you, he would be there; if you had just broken up with your girlfriend, he would be there; if you were feeling depressed, or worse, Ben would sense that, and he would be there.  There are so many of you out there who know who and what Ben was, and it seems clear from what you have told us that you are so much the better for it.

I love that I can see some of me in you

Ben was the youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son.  As a young man I think it’s fair to say he was a little self absorbed, and that trouble and disaster were his close companions.  He was cheeky, and he was more than happy to be the centre of attention – in fact at times he insisted on it.  I suspect some, indeed possibly all of these qualities may have been inherited.

Which leads me to the next item

I love that you are far more accomplished and successful in so many areas than I was at your age

Although Ben did indeed present challenges to his teachers and parents alike for many years, the fact is that the last Ben we will ever know was the sort of young man any girlfriend would be happy to bring home to Mum and Dad, any grandparent would be delighted to introduce to their friends, any sibling would be honoured to call brother, and any parent would be proud to call their son.  Ben learnt lessons so fast, much faster than I ever did, about what it takes to be a good man.  And if we feel the need to explain how he did that, we need look no further than the place in which we find ourselves today.  This School has changed the lives of many thousands of boys for more than 50 years now; but nothing I say today can come close to expressing how grateful we are for the young man you delivered back to us after we entrusted him into your care all those years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, that cheekiness, and the tear-arse nature, that were such an integral part of Ben’s personality as a young man, never left him.  But the humanity, the sense of responsibility, and the leadership that made Ben the person we will remember forever with such love and admiration were forged here, I have no doubt about that.

I love that you are willing to give honest answers to difficult questions

You would have gathered from Linda’s story earlier that Ben demanded honesty from those around him, especially us.  If he asked a direct question you better believe he expected a direct answer; as a result of which Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, to name just a few, were on borrowed time at our house.  But to his credit he didn’t ask anything of us that he wasn’t prepared to deliver himself.  Ben was a straight-shooter all his life.  There were no hidden agendas with him, no airs or pretences.  In a world where a lot of people are so image-conscious that they sometimes lose track of what is genuine, Ben was, as far as I am concerned, the real deal.  What you saw was what you got; sometimes warts and all of course, but no less lovable for that.

I love that you have been able to form such a deep and genuine relationship with Laura

I have given the School here plenty of credit for forming the man that Ben had become, and rightly so.  But there are aspects to Ben’s personality as we now know it – in particular his ability to look at the world from outside his own bubble – which may never have developed, and certainly not as quickly, or as strongly, without Laura’s influence.
These two were, to my mind, as close as a couple can get.  And Ben was so much a better person because of it.  Unconditional love is a wonderful thing.  Laura loved Ben, loves Ben, for everything that he was, and he felt exactly the same about her.  I don’t believe that he could have become the friend, brother, son that he was without you Laura – and how can we ever thank you for that. Hopefully by telling you and showing you every day from now until forever how much you mean to us, and how lucky we feel to have you in our lives.  And to Laura’s parents, Tim and Maxine, and to Nick and Rachel, and Cam, thank you for making Ben feel so much a part of your family over such a long period of time; so much so that I suspect there were times Ben would gladly have made a full time swap.

And so to the last item that I wrote about Ben those three years ago

I love that your future is so bright

What do I say about that one now?

What I say is that the way Ben met the challenges of life as an adult from 2015 up to now confirms 100% what I sensed about him back then.  That he was going to continue to set an example for all of us to follow.  As far as I’m concerned the fact that Ben’s life has been cut tragically short won’t change that one bit.  Ben packed more into his 21 years, and left more indelible memories for the rest of us, than many people who have lived much longer lives than he.  

I said at Ben’s funeral service on Monday, and I say it again to all of you today; I have never seen Ben happier with all aspects of his life collectively than he was in 2019.  So if we had to lose him, I am so glad I can carry forward the knowledge that his life was an extraordinary gift – to him, and to all of us.

I started off talking about the life lessons my two wonderful sons have given me.  If I look for the biggest lesson that Ben has left me, and there have been many, it’s to make every day count, to make our lives count, because we none of us know how much time we have left ahead of us.

Thank you everyone, from the bottom of our hearts, for joining us here today to honour Ben, and for the incredible support that so many of you have provided to us these past 18 days.  We will never forget it.

And we will never forget you Ben.  I love you with all my heart, and I always will.

Geoff also spoke at Ben’s funeral, and Ben’s mother Linda Cordner also spoke at the Celebration of Life. Both speeches are on Speakola.

Geoff writes regularly about his son at his blog The Beniverse, You can check out a post like ‘Batting with Ben’

For 'the 96': 'You've taken on the wrong mums too!', by Bill Kenwright, Hillsborough Memorial - 2013

15 April 2013, Anfield, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Bill Kenwright was chairman of Liverpool’s great Merseyside rival, Everton. This is one of the most beautiful sporting speeches of all time.

[Fans singing for the 96] I'm not going to stop you!

When I was asked if I would say these few words, I was worried on two levels. One, I've had the most emotional day of my life earlier this year, actually nine months ago, and I knew that this was going to be a really emotional one for me too. To be honest with you, I didn't really feel half of what I'm feeling now and my life will never be the same after today, I promise you that.

I was one of those kids brought up in the late forties and early fifties who lived in a soccer mad family, but would go one week here, and one week to the other place. [laugh] And these were the days when a kid could play out at night, when you could go to see your team on your own. And I was quite a small, timid kid, and I used to enter the Kop - there was an entrance there and there was a big stanchion here. And the main reason I came to the Kop to see Liverpool was because of my family, because I loved my uncle Cyril Immoderately, and I just wanted to be him with him and his mates on a Saturday afternoon when Everton were playing away.

And there was this big stanchion here, and if you stood a couple of inches on it, you could see right up in the Kop. And my uncle always used to stand around about there. And all he had to do was put his hand up like that, and this little eight year old would see him. And I would start my journey. And I promise you, I wouldn't get a yard before someone would pick me up and I would be handled over heads until -- it's true! - until I'd found my uncle in the Kop.

And I've never forgotten that. And I've never forgotten the warmth of this amazing site here. And two dates stick in my memory of when I was closest to Liverpool Football Club. One of them was when my all-time idol, Dave Hickson joined you, and alongside 10,000 other Evertonians on a December night in 1959, we came and watched you beat Aston Villa two one and you worship Dave as we worship Dave.

The other day, of course, was 24 years ago today, when I was at Villa Park, not as a chairman, not even as a director, but as a fan. And I know you know all this, but from an Evertonian point of view, that was an extraordinary day for us, Because that was a time when you really wanted to win a semifinal. It was probably more precious to you than getting to the final because it was in the days when the final was at Wembley, and you got there.

And that day, all of my mates and I gathered together afterwards as the news came trickling in, and it was a trickle. And we felt like we'd been relegated. We didn't feel like we just got to Wembley. The journey home was terrible, not nearly as terrible for what you go through. But we all knew people, had people. We all thought it could have been us. If those balls that come out of the bag differently, it could have been us. And it happened tragically to you. And I hope since that day, you have known the support of Everton Football Club for you. [applause]

I don't want to go on too much longer. But like all of you, I watched that Liverpool documentary a few weeks back. And of course the words Hillsborough, the words justice were mentioned all the time. But there were two words that were mentioned an awful lot and resonated to me hugely. And I think to me that the two most important words in the English language, certainly to people from Liverpool, that the two most important words in the English language, the words were 'Me mum'. And all of us here are lucky enough, some of us have got our moms beside us, but we've all got mums. And I saw your banner on Saturday at Reading saying, 'you've taken on the wrong city'. Well, you've taken on the wrong mums too!' Because we all know about Liverpool mums and the way they fight for their kids and their family. And you mums here today, you mums here today. I know the pain ... I don't know the pain because I'm not you. But I appreciate the pain that you would've felt on that day. But let me tell you, the 96 are here with you today as much as they've always been.

And I hope by next year, the 25th anniversary, you'll be celebrating the greatest victory that any team in this country has ever had. Not just in football but in life. Everton Football Club, our manager, David Moyes over there, we salute you. And if you ever want to come and have a service for them over at our place with some blues, the door's always open for you. God bless you.

For Father Bob Maguire: by John Safran - 2023

5 May 2023, Melbourne, Australia

I spent so much time with Father Bob over 20 years, I feel I can auto-generate an A.I. chat between him and me, regarding today.

“Bob, you’re dead. Do you want a state funeral?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Ooh, I’m not sure about the state and the church colluding in matters spiritual. It worries me… I want a Tibetan sky burial, where they take you up the mountain and you’re eaten by the birds”

“Or I could push you out to sea on an iceberg”

“Oh yes, I’d like that”

“But Bob, a state funeral, because it’s such a rare honour, will really annoy your enemies, so it will be like, ‘needless to say I had the last laugh’”

And he’d go “Hmmm, enticing… but still no!”

And then I’d say “You always said, there’s no you and me, there’s only we. And the great we - all the people who loved you - need a chance to come together and say goodbye. And they’re not going to fit on top of that mountain in Tibet”.

And he’d say “Oh go on, have the state funeral. But no flags!”

Bob was like a reverse Native American. He thought his soul would be taken away if a camera wasn’t pointed at him. But it wasn’t because he was vain, it was because he felt such joy, and he knew it provided others with joy, grappling with the important questions of life in an irreverent way. A funny way of being serious, he would say.

While he might have been ambivalent about a State Funeral, he was always interested, obsessed even, with gauging the success, or otherwise of projects he was involved in. Calling me to ask about podcast download numbers, overnight ratings, book sales, follower counts. So, Bob you’ll be delighted to know that the eulogy I tweeted about you, was a blockbuster, my biggest ever, with 400 thousand views, 12 thousand likes. I’ll read it for you Bob, upload it to the cloud you’re no doubt sitting on now:

What was Father Bob like privately? Somehow kinder and funnier than he was publicly. We somehow ‘fought’ nonstop from the moment the record button was pressed in 2003, through documentaries, radio shows and books, right through to filming this year, but we never once fought. More than being kind in broad brushstrokes, he was kind in small ways. When an elderly congregant couldn’t catch the Collingwood matches, he organised tapes from Channel 7 that he would slip to her, along with the Eucharist wafer, during communion. Bob was wise as Buddha. He attracted all manner of outcasts, not all pleasant, but he was open hearted to those people too. I asked him how he did this and he said, “You don’t have to like people to love them.” When filming, it was an editor’s nightmare to cut from the shot before I’d burst out laughing each time Bob finished a sentence. I never thought Bob would ever stop making me laugh, but with the sad news of today, he finally has.

Thank you.

For Tony Benn: 'There he sat, smoking his pipe', parliamentary tribute by Dennis Skinner - 2014

20 March 2014, House of Commons, London, United Kingdom

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I hesitate to join in this business because in many ways I thought of Benn in the early Labour Party conferences as somebody that, unlike those of us that came from the Trade Union movement, as being part of the English radical dissenting left.

And he was at that time, a member of the NEC. And I think there were some significant changes that took place in the early seventies that changed his life. I may be wrong, but in early 1970, when I came to Parliament, we had about five or six years of constant demonstrations. And I used to go on these demos and there would be a gang of people from the TUC , and they were all recognisable and I'm telling Tony Ben all about this. And then I went to Pentonville, and there were six dockers in jail. And they were in jail because the Industrial Relations Act had  been passed, passed! Got Royal Assent. And they had been on a picket line and they weren't supposed to be there.

So I went to Tower Hill with Eric Keffer and then Eric said, 'Are you coming back to Parliament, Dennis?' I said, 'no, this is the most important strike demo I've ever been on. The TUC have declared a day of action. Who knows what will happen at the end and off I went.'

I told Tony Benn all about it, and the following day he said to me, he says, 'they might have to get them out.' And I thought, well, it's asking a bit too much. But I did repeat it to Eric Effa and Stan Hall.

And I told him, I says, 'those six dockers will be in Strangers Bar by tomorrow night.' Thought I'd embellish it. And it worked. The official solicitor had to go to Pentonville jail and get them out. Is there any wonder that a dissenting English radical began to change his mind a little bit more? That's what really happened.

And then the miner's won in 72 and then they won again in 74 and we marched again and Tony said to me, as the Daily Express in Fleet Street were cheering from the windows. Yes, I said it right, the Daily Express! And Tony says, 'look at him at the Daily Express'. I said, yes, sadly it's not the owners, Tony!'

 They were heady days. And then the Upper Clyde ship building, which was already mentioned, and so on and on it went. I mean, the truth was that those of us that were in the thick of it knew that it was having a major effect.

So let's just examine what we say about Tony.

He was shaped by events all his life. And he lived through it. He had an environment that was different to mine as a kid. But then, as I say, it all changed. And then I got elected to the national executive and he would come armed with amendments every month. I didn't have to bother writing amendments. They were already displayed and distributed to the six, seven or eight that might be allowed to read them.

He was a clever man as well. That's what he was. He was clever, Industrious. He got all the abilities. And I used to say to him, da de da de da, 'put that in the diary tonight!' And he actually did on one occasion. He got fed up of hearing me. He says, 'Skinner said, I've got to put this in the diary. '

So I had some enjoyable times with him. Most of the time, almost all of the time. He was very intelligent as well. He knew all about loads of subjects. I mean, he had a pager before MP's had them. He knew all about technology. Wasn't just Concord, yknow. He knew about it. He could probably have built it. He had a mobile phone before anybody else, and he's talking a language that I still don't understand. He could have built a computer. Yeah, he was very knowledgeable except he didn't know much about competitive sport.

I finished up at a Labour Party conference, I think it was out at Brighton. He says, you're late.' I said, 'I know I'm late, Tony there a reason'. He says, 'yes, it was a Tory mayor and you didn't want be here!' I said, well, that's part of it. I said, but the most important reason is that I'm watching Cram and Elliot on the telly in the mile of the century as they said. He says, 'Cram and Elliott, are they your delegates?' I said, 'Tony, Tony.' I says, 'do you know Ayrton Senna because I watched him win the formula 1!'  'Ayrton Senna, who''s he?'

I mean, you had to like somebody like that. Somebody that kept all the lists of all the results of everything. You didn't have to go far to find out. Now we look for things on the computer and I could ask Tony Benn and he would tell me.  

I had a lot of enjoyable times with him. And he was industrious, he was clever. He was a great diarist. He had a lot of qualities that all of us in our hearts really admire, don't we? And wish we possessed them all.

And that's why I constantly wanted to see him in these last few years. I didn't see him on the last occasion. He went to Charing Cross Hospital, but I did last autumn, after the Labour Party Conference, when they told me he'd been in the hospital, out the hospital, back in again, I thought I'd better go. And the day after the conference, I went to find him. And in typical Tony Benn fashion, when I got there, room K was empty. You feared the worst and somebody quickly said, 'I saw somebody wheeling him down in a wheelchair.' And I got outside in a lovely little park in the autumn sunshine, just like his last book. And there he sat in the wheelchair with a fellow who helped him with some television business or other, smoking his pipe. And for three quarters of an hour, The Tony Benn I knew and will always admire was sat in that chair, lighting up three times, and we talked about the Labour Party conference. It's one that he'd not been able to attend. He couldn't go. He was in hospital. And so I told him the whole story about what happened.

It was a bit biased, but he didn't mind that. He expected it from me. Yes, that was the Tony Benn I knew. Wonderful man, and we should always remember that. And as for the longest suicide note in history, let me put that to bed as well. The left had lost control by 1983 on the executive, check the facts. The chair of the election committee was John Golden, you all remember him, don't you? The right had took control. There was only one member of the left on that election executive committee. Eric Effer, by virtue of being chairman. So I wanted to put that to bed.

But I also remember what my honourable friend from Chesterfield said about the election at Chesterfield. What a wonderful campaign. Literally thousands of people came, Labour party members, I've never seen so many at any by election. And it was great throughout that whole period of two or three weeks. And he said to me, when I met him in Chesterfield Market Square, 'how do you think things are going?' I said, 'Tony, we are going to win.' I said, 'we've got this army of people coming. We've nothing to worry about. it's going to be Elsie Tanner, Tony Booth, the Vicar of Aberdale Farm. They all came and I introduced them on the mini bus. And then he says, 'is there anything else I should do, Dennis?' I said, 'yes. Put a tie on.' I says, 'you're the ambassador of a market town.' And Tony Benn, the Tony Benn, turned up the following day in a tie!

How could I other than love the man

For Edward Kennedy: 'It was our final history trip together', by niece Caroline Kennedy - 2009

28 August 2009, John F Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President and all the speakers tonight for the gifts of Teddy that you have given to all of us. And thank you Vicky for loving him with all your heart for so many years, bringing him so much happiness, and to Karin, Teddy, and Patrick, Kiki, Karin, and Caroline for making him so proud, bringing him so much joy. And to Jean, I know you've lost your soulmate because you and Teddy lived each other's lives for your whole entire lives, and all your nieces and nephews are here to help you as best we can

Welcome to this library that Teddy built and brought to life with his spirit and dedication to public service. As many of you know, over the last few years, or really for most of my semi adult life, one of my part-time jobs has been introducing Teddy to crowds of people who already knew him incredibly well.

Although this process was unbelievably stressful for me, it was just another one of the gifts that he gave me. When he saw that I was nervous, he would give me a pat on the back. When he knew that I was sad, he would call up and say, 'I've got a great idea. There's a convention coming up, and maybe you'd like to introduce me?' <laugh>,

And off I would go on another adventure in public speaking, but no matter how nervous I was, I always knew that when I stepped down from the podium, I would get a big kiss and hear him whisper. 'Now I'm going to get you back,' and I can't believe that's not going to happen tonight.

The other night after Vicky called Ed and I went outside. It was a beautiful summer night. The moon had set. There was no wind. The sea was calm and the stars were out. I looked up and there was this one star hanging low in the sky that was just bigger than all the rest and brighter than all the rest, with a twinkle and a sparkle louder than all the others. I know it was Jupiter, but it was acting a lot like Teddy.

His colleagues have spoken tonight about his work, his devotion to the Senate, the joy he took in helping others, his thoughtfulness and compassion, his inspirational courage, and his commitment to the ideals of peace and justice that his brothers gave their lives for, and that he fought for his entire career. In our family we were lucky to see his passion, his self-discipline, and his generosity of heart every single day. He had a special relationship with each of his 28 nieces and nephews, and with the 60 people who called him great uncle Teddy.

He was there for every baptism, every school trip to Washington, every graduation and every wedding with his big heart, his big shoulders, and a big hug. He knew when we were having a tough time or a great time, and he would just show up and say It's time to go sailing. He convinced us that we could ace the next test, make the varsity team win the next race, whether it was sailing or politics, and it was okay if we didn't. As long as we tried our best.

He did it by letting us know that he believed in us, so we should believe in ourselves. He talked by example and with love. He showed us how to keep going no matter how hard things were, to love each other, no matter how mad we got and keep working for what we believe in.

He never told us what to do. He just did it himself, and we learned from his example. Though it was sometimes overshadowed by his other gifts, Teddy was a creative spirit. He loved painting and singing in the natural world and the sea. He was always looking for new ways to bring people together, to make a better world, to get things done, and he was always doing things that other people could have done, but he was somehow the one who did it. This is true in the Senate, as we've heard tonight, as it is in our family,.

So I thought I'd tell you a little bit about one of the less known examples. His creation of the annual family history trips. Visiting historical sites is something anyone can do, but Teddy made it into something special. He realised that a family reunion was wasted if it was just a cookout, so he made it a chance to learn and share the love of history that he got from his mother and honey Fitz.

In my childhood, these trips were relatively simple affairs. An occasional visit to the Nantucket Whaling Museum where Western Massachusetts campaign swing that included the Cranes paper factory where dollar bills were printed, and the studio where Daniel Chester French created the statue of Abraham Lincoln. And no visit to gram's house was complete without Teddy's recitation of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. When I was young, I thought Teddy was just entertaining us, but as I grew up, I realised he was passing down his belief that each of us has a chance to change the course of history.

Teddy lived for the future. Now he loved the past, but when a new generation came along, in typical Teddy style, he decided to take it all to a new level. He wanted us all to share his love of being together, his passion for history, and to learn about the sacrifices upon which this country was built, so that we would understand our own opportunities and obligations. He took this on with enthusiasm, and his organisational magic, helped as always by the extraordinary team that are all here tonight and will be working for him forever.

Teddy illuminated the world around us and brought the past to life. The trips were open to everyone, and although there was always some pre-trip moaning and groaning among the teenagers, no one ever wanted to stay home. We visited the monuments of Washington by night and Mount Vernon by boat. We walked the Civil War battlefield of Antideum, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Harpers Ferry, and Gettysburg. In Richmond, we saw the Tredegger Iron Works and the church where Patrick Henry made his immortal speech about liberty. We went to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Valley Forge and Constitution Hall in Philadelphia. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and learned about the Battle of Long Island. But the culmination of this tradition was our trip to Boston. We took a ride on the old Cape Railway and learned about the building of the Cape Cod Canal. On the way to Boston, we went to Plymouth Rock.

When we got here, we visited the USS Constitution, saved by Honey Fitz. Bunker Hill, Paul Revere's house, the old North Church, the Old South meeting house, the house where grandma was born, and the spot where the Irish immigrants came ashore. We toured the Kennedy Library and had picnic at the Boston Harbour Lighthouse.

Although the rule for history trips was that they were day trips only, we all knew that to Teddy, Boston was special. He had a surprise for us, which was that we were going to get the chance to camp out on Thompson Island. He didn't tell us that for most of the year, this facility is used for juvenile detention until after we had set up our tents in the dirt. It was about 98 degrees. The bugs were out. It smelled like low tide all night long, and the planes from Logan were taking off and landing right over our heads. We figured Teddy was trying to teach us something, but after a boiling hot 16 hour history day with 20 children under 10, we weren't quite sure what it was. In any event, that was when Teddy decided that even he had had enough of history, finally, and snuck out under Cover of Darkness on his secret getaway boat, and headed for the Ritz <laugh> Once again, he had it all figured out.

Yesterday, as we drove the same route up from the Cape, I thought about all the gifts that Teddy gave us, and the incredible journey he took. I thought about how lucky I am to have travelled some of that journey with him and with all the wonderful people that he embraced, so many of whom are here tonight. I thought about how he touched so many hearts and did so many things that only he could have done. I thought too, about all the things he did that we all could do, but we just figured Teddy would do them instead.

As we drove through the Boston that he loved and saw the thousands of people who loved him back, I realised that it was our final history trip together. Now, Teddy has become a part of history, and we have become the ones who have to do all the things he would've done for us, for each other and for our country.

For Andrew 'Andy' Smith: 'Cheer, boys, cheer we’re for Melbourne', by MUFC club president Andrew Donald - 2023

25 January 2023, Le Pine Funeral chapel, Essendon, Melbourne, Australia

During the last Test Match, I took a friend from Sydney to the Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. On display were handwritten rules for the game of Australian football and dated May 1859, being the first recorded rules of the game. On Saturday, 28th May 1859, University played St Kilda in our first match with the match reported in Bell’s Sporting Life published on 4th June. Such was his longevity that one half expected to see the words “Timekeeper A. M. Smith Esq.” recorded in the match summary. Although self-evident, such is the esteem in which Andy was and will forever be held, we have called upon our most senior official to deliver this eulogy on our behalf.

Fifty-year celebration

On Saturday 4th August 2012, the Blacks held a luncheon in the old pavilion to celebrate Andy’s fiftieth year of honorary service to the Blacks and to the men’s football programme at the University. That service included occupying nearly every post, including two years as president of the M.U.F.C. in 1984 and 1985, performing a myriad of tasks for Blacks and managing teams in the M.U.F.C. intervarsity programme.

 As one would expect, the luncheon was fully subscribed with attendees from five decades from the halcyon days of premierships in the Victorian Amateur Football Association’s A Section to the equally celebrated premierships in the sections below.

The renowned scribe and keen observer of life, the Black Hack (one suspects a nom de plume) observed in his article published on 9th August 2012, “in any case, my choice of attire for this Saturday gone was a very straightforward affair. It was Andy Smith Tribute Day and a V-Neck pullover was the only way to go. As I packed my tram timetable and handkerchief in order to complete the outfit, I considered all that had occurred during Andy’s 50 year tenure – from wars to droughts, from colour TV to iPhones, from woollen to lycra jumpers – and that if Andy were to have a sav blanc for every year of service he could give you an opinion on all of them.”

A marvellous luncheon was had on a memorable day for the Blacks.

 The universal theme from those speaking on behalf of generations of Blackers was a deep affection for Andy and a genuine appreciation for his tireless work. Of course, Andy’s service didn’t end there and continued for more than a decade and into the 2022 season during which after more than sixty years of service Andy called time on his life as an official and life as a spectator beckoned.

Ern Cropley

Andy was chuffed when, in 2014, the new pavilion was aptly named the “Ernie Cropley Pavilion” after his great friend and house mate of many years, “Croppo”: curator of the hallowed turf for fifty years and described on the M.U.F.C. website as “the most colourful and best-known and best-loved character in University cricket and football circles.”

Blackers’ reflections upon Andy’s passing

 I have been provided with many reflections, a selection of which is as follows:

“A wonderful selfless servant of the club.”

“Andy was there at my first game in Reserves in 2001 and last game 2015.” He loved regaling me with stories of swindles he and my old man got up to at intervarsity games in the seventies. Something along the lines of cash bets and getting the opposition drunk with free booze before the games. I loved his brutal assessments post-match which were delivered with love.”

When letting a Blacker down lightly having missed a mark at a crucial time in a match “Moff, your old man wouldn’t have dropped that.”

“A warm man who made everyone welcome. No one went through our club without being bailed up by Andy for a chat.”

“Heart and soul of the club and part of the old firm along with Jack Clancy who schooled new players on the history and what it meant to play for Uni Blacks.”

 “So loyal and such a supporter of all who represented the Blacks. I rarely got to the Pavvy without a post-mortem and a 3.2.1 of the best and, at times, a 3.2.1 of who shouldn’t be in the best.”

 “My earliest memory of the Blacks was in 2001 after playing a practice match at Williamstown. My first game of football in years, lying on my back after the game exhausted with no skin on my knees and dazed. I am jolted out of my daze when Andy’s dogs are doing a great job at licking the wounds on my knees with Andy standing beside them with a cheeky grin.”

 And I remember a conversation out at C.B.C. St Kilda’s ground in Murrumbeena around 1990 when I was Blacks’ secretary Andy “Can you look after m’dogs, while I time-keep?” Me “Do I have to?” Andy “Yes”

And one final quote which transcends the generations of Blackers and ultimately defines the mood “Part of the Blacks’ furniture who helped make the University Main Oval such a special place for us all.” Such a special place for us all.

The A.M. Smith Perpetual Trophy for the Best Clubman

 Presentation nights represent the finale to a season and provide a serious forum in which serious awards are presented, serious speeches are made, and a club reflects in an earnest manner about the season just completed.

The best club person award is more than an award for significant contribution but is an acknowledgement of the value of the selfless acts of one person for the benefit of others (and the cohort generally) and an appreciation that those acts underpin a club’s very existence.

In the early nineties, the Blacks annual award for the best clubman was changed to the A.M. Smith Perpetual Trophy as a permanent acknowledgement of Andy’s contribution to the life, times and prosperity of the Blacks. To better understand how valuable this work is, it is worth spending a moment on the concept of the best club person. Although awarded on an annual basis, the truth is that usually the recipient has years of honorary service week in week out under his or her belt: managing the teams, keeping the time, field umpiring the reserves, (back in the day) numerous trips to V.A.F.A. HQ to register players, sweeping out the rooms after an under nineteen’s match, spending hours on a Saturday morning preparing for a legendary Blackers’ afternoon tea, sitting in a car listening to a player earnestly express his feelings about his relationship failure of three months.

The list is endless but, in essence, for up to eight months a year, it is assuming operational responsibility for the logistics in deploying more than a hundred players and officials to somewhere in metropolitan Melbourne and dealing with what has now become the complex business of running a community football club especially in a grade where the competition is fierce.

But Andy was not simply an official who came on matchdays, kept the time and went home. He was far more than that. He knew all the players and officials young and old well and was a welcome and active participant in the Blacks’ social life including the famous Black Spot which for many years held top billing on Thursday nights at the Clyde.

Andy’s love of the game of lawn bowls

It would be remiss of us not to talk about Andy’s love of lawn bowls a fact well known to all at Blacks. We enjoyed the fact that it gave him so much joy. We note that the Moonee Ponds Bowling Club was established in 1891 is situated in Queens Park, a beautiful garden, a short distance from here and is noted for having among the best bowling greens in Victoria and priding itself on providing a great family environment to around 150 social and bowling members.

It is a rarity for a person to be a life member of three sporting clubs with the M.U.F.C. (since 1980), the M.P.B.C. and the Carlton Bowling Club now the Princes Park Carlton Bowls Club.

Andy’s health no bar to his support for the Blacks

Over the past few years, Andy had his health issues but that didn’t stop him from attending the footy and expressing his views about all things Black in his usual forthright manner.

Last year, I visited Andy at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Our salutation was that of two blokes who had known each for a long time as I was allocated to Blacks in 1979. We vaguely nodded at each other. Shooting the Blackers’ and general M.U.F.C. breeze and happily discussing the Blackers’ return to the Premier Division where the Blacks belong, well over an hour passed effortlessly.

As I left, our exchange embodied the idea that the ties that bind are often in what is not said. Me: “S’pose I’d better go” Andy: “S’pose you’d better.” Me: “Good luck with the operation.” Andy: “Thanks”.

Loyalty

In an age of fatuous over-statement, the word “loyalty” gets a fair work-out but one wonders how often its meaning is considered or used carefully. Synonyms are “faithfulness”, “constancy”, “commitment”, “dependability” and “reliability”.

In the mid-nineties when the Blacks were collapsing through the grades, at a low ebb, and where resources were very thin, one A.M. Smith stayed the journey, continued and remained faithful to the cause: constant, committed and dependable. Values which by his conduct Andy imparted to generations of University footballers who have gone onto to lead the way in business, the professions, academia, the arts, science, government and public administration and in professional sport.

Vale Andy

Our condolences to Andy’s family. We thank them for giving us an opportunity to speak.

“Cheer, boys, cheer we’re for Melbourne. Now we’re on the road to victory. We will beat them all round, at our home and any ground” the first lines of the traditional song of the University Football Club and successfully reintroduced into the Blacks after Andy led a long campaign.

And so we say goodbye to a favourite son. Blackers unum et omnia, Blackers one and all.

For John F Kennedy: 'He was vigorous and healthy and smiling and friendly', Senate memorial service, by Jacob Javits - 1963

November 1963, Washington DC, USA

Mr. President, hundreds of thousands of words have been published, and hundreds of thousands more have been spoken into the microphones of the world since John F. Kennedy was struck down in Dallas, but none of them were really adequate. Words never are in the face of senseless tragedy.

Words cannot describe how the American people felt when they lost their president. Not until the vacuum of disbelief was filled with the horror of comprehension did any of us realize how much we identified ourselves, even apart from personal friendship, with the president — this intellectual, vigorous young man — and he would have been that if he were eighty — expressing the very essence of the youthfulness of our nation. It seems of little consequence now that there were political differences, or objections to this or that legislative product, though as far as I am concerned there was a very large measure of agreement. What matters is that feeling of loss — that personal sense of emptiness — that all Americans feel because their president was cut off in the prime of life. As a nation, we have lost a president who understood the institution of the presidency, gloried in its overwhelming responsibilities, and discharged his duties with dash and joy, which were an inspiration to the youth of our nation.

But John F. Kennedy was more than that. He was a man filled with the joy of living. He was a husband, a father — and my friend.

For myself, I remember coming to Congress the dame day he did. We were sworn in together on the same January day in 1947. A photograph on my office wall shows that we two, returning veterans, looked a little uncomfortable at the moment in our civilian clothes. It shows us looking at the Taft-Ellender-Wagner housing bill, and it recalls the first job we did together when we called on the National Veterans Housing Conference of 1947, which we had organized, to back this bill. It was the beginning of an association which extended throughout our careers in the House and Senate. We collaborated in many bipartisan matters, as is not unusual in the Congress. Indeed, in our service together in the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, we worked closely — as did Senator Morse and others — on the minimum wage bill, the Labor-Management Disclosure Act, and other similar measures which were major aspects of Senator Kennedy’s legislative career.

I am a personal witness to the fact that he was resourceful, optimistic, and creative. He became and was my friend, and this is a deep source of gratification to me and to Mrs. Javits and our family.

Mrs. Javits, too, knew President Kennedy well and admired him greatly. She will, I know, always think of the president’s graciousness and the warmth of personal friendship which he exuded.

Only a week before his tragic passing, I saw him in the Oval Room at the White House when he accepted the report of the Advisory Committee on Medical Care for the Aged, in which Senator Anderson and I joined, and issued a statement offering encouragement and help.

He was vigorous and healthy and smiling and friendly — a complete human being, concerned about other human beings who were no longer as vigorous and not quite as healthy as they used to be.

This concern for the unfortunate by a many with all of the social graces and all the social status and as much power as America allows one man was what made him so much the symbol of the youth of our country. His wife, Jacqueline, who has given Americans so much reason to be very proud of her and of all American womanhood as she reflected in it, in these last mournful weeks, in the way she carried herself, has said the most beautiful tribute — that John F. Kennedy had the “hero idea of history,” and that she did not want people to forget John F. Kennedy — the man — and replace him with some shadowy figure in the history books.

She need not fear that. There are already thousands upon thousands of people in the world working to keep his memory alive. I have been privileged to join with many others in this body in cosponsoring a bill to rename the National Cultural Center and make it a living, vibrant memorial to this vibrant man who loved the arts. And with Senator Humphrey, I have joined in a bill establishing a commission to ensure that only the most appropriate memorials be created in his honor.

These are well-meaning, deeply sincere tokens — necessary, but still tokens. In reality it will be John F. Kennedy’s youthful freshness in his aspirations for our country that will keep his memory fresh.

In a real sense we, his former colleagues in the Congress, are the only ones with the power to write words which can transform these aspirations into memorials with meaning. We can write legislative acts, like a meaningful civil rights law, which would consecrate and perpetuate John F. Kennedy’s love for personal and national dignity. We can exorcise from our country — and the American people are doing that even now — those extremes of hatred and disbelief in public affairs which create a climate in which terrible acts become much more likely.

Acts such as these will be his final memorials. It is within our power to establish them. Perhaps his noblest memorial is that he would have wanted such memorials almost as no others.

So, in common with my colleagues in this solemn service — and that is what this is today — I bespeak for Mrs. Javits and my children — and I would place their names in the Record, so that as they read this Record when they grow up, I hope they will read their names in it and see that their father spoke with deep sympathy — Joy, Joshua, and Carla, to Mrs. Kennedy and the children, and to the president’s father and mother and his brothers and sisters and their families our deepest sympathy on this terrible bereavement, for our nation and for all mankind, and in the deep expectation that flowers will grow from his grave for the benefit of man.”

Source JFK Presidential Library

For Gerard Ford: 'He played in the middle of the line', by Tom Brokaw - 2007

2 January 2007, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

Mrs. Ford, members of the Ford family, President and Mrs. Bush, Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, President and Mrs. Bush, President and Mrs. Carter, President and Mrs. Clinton, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans; it’s a great privilege and an honor for me to be here.

For the past week, we have been hearing the familiar lyrics of the hymns to the passing of a famous man, the hosannas to his decency, his honesty, his modesty and his steady-as-she-goes qualities. It’s what we’ve come to expect on these occasions.

But this time there was extra value, for in the case of Gerald Ford, these lyrics have the added virtue of being true.

Sometimes there are two versions to these hymns – one public and one private, separate and discordant. But in Gerald Ford, the man he was in public, he was also that man in private.

Gerald Ford brought to the political arena no demons, no hidden agenda, no hit list or acts of vengeance. He knew who he was and he didn’t require consultants or gurus to change him. Moreover, the country knew who he was and despite occasional differences, large and small, it never lost its affection for this man from Michigan, the football player, the lawyer and the veteran, the Congressman and suburban husband, the champion of Main Street values who brought all of those qualities to the White House.

Once there, he stayed true to form, never believing that he was suddenly wiser and infallible because he drank his morning coffee from a cup with a presidential seal.

He didn’t seek the office. And yet, as he told his friend, the late, great journalist Hugh Sidey, he was not frightened of the task before him.

We could identify with him – all of us – for so many reasons. Among them, we were all trapped in what passed for style in the 70’s with a wardrobe with lapels out to here, white belts, plaid jackets and trousers so patterned that they would give you a migraine. The rest of us have been able to destroy most of the evidence of our fashion meltdown, but presidents are not so lucky. Those David Kennerly photographs are reminders of his endearing qualities, but some of those jackets – I think that they’re eligible for a presidential pardon or at least a digital touch-up.

As a journalist, I was especially grateful for his appreciation of our role, even when we challenged his policies and taxed his patience with our constant presence and persistence. We could be adversaries but we were never his enemy, and that was a welcome change in status from his predecessor’s time.

To be a member of the Gerald Ford White House press corps brought other benefits as well as we documented a nation and a world in transition, in turmoil. We accompanied him to audiences with the notorious and the merely powerful. We saw Tito, Franco, Sadat, Marcos, Suharto, the shah of Iran, the emperor of Japan, China with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping all at once, what was then the Soviet Union and Vladivostock with Leonid Brezhnev, and Helsinki at one of the most remarkable gatherings of leaders in the 20th century.

There were other advantages to being a member of his press corps that we didn’t advertise quite as widely. We went to Vail at Christmas and Palm Springs at Easter time with our families. Now cynics might argue that contributed to our affection for him. That is not a premise that I wish to challenge.

One of our colleagues, Jim Naughton of The New York Times, personified the spirit that existed in the relationship. He bought from a San Diego radio station promoter a large mock chicken head that had attracted the president’s attention at a G.O.P. rally. And then, giddy from 20-hour days and an endless repetition of the same campaign speech, Naughton decided to wear that chicken head to a Ford news conference in Oregon with the enthusiastic encouragement of the president and his chief of staff, Dick Cheney.

In the next news cycle, the chicken head was a bigger story than the president. And no one was more pleased than the man that we honor here today in this august ceremony.

When the president called me last year and asked me if I would participate in these services, I think he wanted to be sure that the White House press corps was represented: the writers, correspondents and producers, the cameramen, photographers, the technicians and the chicken.

He also brought something else to the White House, of course. He brought the humanity that comes with a family that seemed to be living right next door. He was every parent when he said my children have spoken for themselves since they were old enough to speak – and not always with my approval. I expect that to continue in the future.

And was there a more supportive husband in America than when his beloved Carol began to speak out on issues that were not politically correct at the time. Together, they put on the front pages and in the leads of the evening newscasts the issues that had been underplayed in America for far too long.

My colleague Bob Schieffer called him the nicest man he ever met in politics. To that I would only add the most underestimated.

In many ways I believe football was a metaphor for his life in politics and after. He played in the middle of the line. He was a center, a position that seldom receives much praise. But he had his hands on the ball for every play and no play could start without him. And when the game was over and others received the credit, he didn’t whine or whimper.

But then he came from a generation accustomed to difficult missions, shaped by the sacrifices and the depravations of the Great Depression, a generation that gave up its innocence and youth to then win a great war and save the world. And when that generation came home from war, they were mature beyond their years and eager to make the world they had saved a better place. They re-enlisted as citizens and set out to serve their country in new ways, with political differences but always with the common goal of doing what’s best for the nation and all the people.

When he entered the Oval Office, by fate not by design, Citizen Ford knew that he was not perfect, just as he knew he was not perfect when he left. But what president ever was?

But he was prepared because he had served his country every day of his adult life and he left the Oval Office a much better place. The personal rewards of his citizenship and his presidency were far richer than he had anticipated in every sense of the phrase.

But the greatest rewards of Jerry Ford’s time were reserved for his fellow Americans and the nation he loved.

Farewell, Mr. President. Thank you, Citizen Ford.

For Chris Cornell: “I’d like to tip my hat to the darker corners of Chris’s soul’, by Tom Morello - 2017

26 May 2017, Los Angeles, California, USA