(Dad's coffin was draped in the Australian flag, with his WWII medals, the famous Slouch hat of the Aussie soldier and a beautiful arrangement of fresh flowers reminiscent of the gorgeous sweet peas, snapdragons, hollyhocks and other English flowers which he loved to grow.)
It was hard for me and my sisters to say good bye to my Dad, despite having him for so long (he was fifteen days shy of his 98th birthday when he passed away). But say good bye, we did, in a beautiful ceremony at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery. My very dear friend, Lisa, who is celebrant (she officiated at the wedding of my eldest son) kindly agreed to act as funeral celebrant plus Dad was given a military farewell by the RSL (Returned Servicemen's League).
For those of you who may be interested, I have included Dad's eulogy below (which I wrote and gave on behalf of myself and my two sisters, Jenny and Sharon). Please feel free to scroll past it, to look at the lovely flowers) which were given to me in Dad's honour by so many wonderful friends.
Eulogy for Roy Willard
(28.08.1919 - 13.08.2017)
Our father was a very private man, who very
rarely talked about his own life – in fact, to get him to talk about himself
was rather like pulling teeth! Instead,
he was a man who was happiest when he was surrounded by his family, his wife,
his daughters, his sons-in-law and his five grandchildren and could listen to
their stories about what was happening in their lives.
Dad was also a very quiet, unassuming man – who
never wanted to be the centre of attention – so much so, that apparently, when
he turned up to his first reunion of the 2/10th Field Company, after living in
Sydney for several years, his fellow veterans were so surprised to see him as
they were convinced he must be dead!
Now, this would have been around 1959 – so you can see if you look at
the order of service that they were wrong by about sixty years – give or take!
Our grandmother and Dad arrived in Australia in
1926, landfall first being in Perth and then onto Melbourne. Somehow, and this is not quite clear to us
how, they then went to Spalding, South Australia, where our grandmother worked
as a housekeeper on some of the large properties in the area. Dad remembered these times fondly, telling stories
of going to the little country school via “horsepooling” as he would be picked
up along the way by two schoolmates on their horse.
Obviously, Dad did well at this little country
school as when, a few years later when he and his mother had moved to Thornbury,
Melbourne, Dad was Dux of Preston South Primary School in 1932.
Over the next decade Dad’s life continued to be
centred in the Collingwood and Thornbury areas as he continued his schooling at
Collingwood Tech, where he was drawn to mathematical and engineering-type
studies before leaving at fifteen to work at KM Windows for Mr Kerr and Mr
Murphy. Dad then worked for the company for forty-seven years all told (with a
slight hiatus called WWII), taking up further engineering studies whilst living
in Sydney in the early 1950s to become qualified as a civil engineer and
staying with the company as it moved through various transitions as Cyclone
Windows and then was taken over by Boral – you can still buy roller parts for
these windows now, which are rather cumbersomely called the Boral KM Cyclone
window!)
When Dad and Mum moved back to Melbourne in
early 1959, Dad worked in Cremorne and you can still see the old KM warehouses
and offices on the righthand side, just before the Nylex clock, as you head
towards Punt Road on the Monash freeway – I was doing some freelance work at
Jacaranda Publishing last year and to my delight, their offices were directly
opposite Dad’s old workplace, although they are being slated for a large apartment
complex now.
Thornbury was the centre of Dad’s family and
social life through the local church, where he met our mother at the youth
group. Mum was just fourteen and Dad, seventeen, when they met and eat your
heart out Romeo and Juliet – this was the true love story – enduring despite
the Great Depression, world war, cruel imprisonment and later in life
ill-health and dementia. My father died
last Sunday week, as devoted to my mother in 2017 as he had been when they
first met eighty-one years ago.
My favourite story of their young courtship was
the tale of how every Saturday, my mother would wash her long, jet-black hair
and then have to sit on the back step to dry it in the sun. Whilst Dad would be playing very bad tennis
at the public courts which backed onto Mum’s home, and I say, very bad tennis, as
for some reason every shot would go over the fence and Dad would just have to hop
over to get it back!
Mum’s youngest brother, our Uncle Ron, told me
proudly the other day how even his birth helped the romance along. Ron was born when Mum was about fifteen and
Mum would often help our grandmother by taking Baby Ron out for a stroll in his
pusher. These strolls inevitably would take her past my Dad’s home, often
several times in one walk, and of course, Dad would just pop out 
to say hello. Ron also told me how he always
thought of Dad as his older brother, as he was always there for him and fondly
remembers the fun outings that he would take with Dad and Mum to exciting
places like Luna Park. These Luna Park
outings continued even when Dad and Mum moved to Sydney for ten years, as they
would just take him to the one in Sydney.
to say hello. Ron also told me how he always
thought of Dad as his older brother, as he was always there for him and fondly
remembers the fun outings that he would take with Dad and Mum to exciting
places like Luna Park. These Luna Park
outings continued even when Dad and Mum moved to Sydney for ten years, as they
would just take him to the one in Sydney.
My uncle was only a teenager when he found
himself orphaned but counted himself lucky to have such a generous older sister
and her husband, who would, from Sydney, send a money order to him every week,
to help with his upbringing as Ron finished his schooling. In fact, I can dimly remember Ron living with
us for a short while in Kemp Ave, Mt Waverley, whilst he was doing some study
at Monash University.
Despite never knowing his own father (who died
when Dad was a baby), our Dad was a marvellous one. Very much a father of the 1950s, ie he never
changed a nappy in his life but he was always a constant, solid presence in our
lives. Our Dad was very well-read and
well-informed – he knew everything and he was our Mr. Google before Google was
even invented – if I wanted to know about anything at all, Dad would know the
answer or else help me find out the answer. In fact, the one regret, I think
that I have for Dad is that he never quite took to computers, as I think that
he would have loved them – in fact, you will see a photo shortly of Dad been
shown how to play chess on a smartphone by his grandson, Brenton. How I would have loved to have seen a smart
man with his smartphone!
Dad would always help us
with our maths homework – although he didn’t like the “New Maths” that came in
some time in the 1970s. Being an
engineer, he was always good with problem-solving. My sister, Sharon, remembers him sitting with
her for hours and hours drawing diagrams to help her with trigonometry.
Dad also had a
secret life, by day he was a civil engineer but in his personal time he was a
private chauffeur – to his three daughters that is! Dad was so devoted to his
three girls that he would drive us wherever we needed to go at any time
– swimming lessons, social functions, Brownies, Guides, netball games – you
name it, Dad was on his way for us.
I can remember
vividly, one Easter, driving up with Dad to Hall’s Gap to pick up my sister,
Jenny, from a youth camp that she had been to.
Now, of course, this is long before any freeways and the highways were
all single lane – so, it took us all day to get there and then, of course, we
had to drive home in the dark. But Dad
thought nothing of doing this for his darling daughter.
He would drive
Mum into the city or to Queen Vic market or South Melbourne market so she could
have a shopping day (pre-Chadstone shopping mall days) and Sharon and I could
remember being dropped off at the “Girls and Boys” (our name for daycare) in
Richmond, with Dad always, always, pointing out the Skipping Girl sign to us.
All of this before he went off to do a full day’s work.
Jenny remembers
that Dad always used to drop her off at Burwood Teacher’s College (now Deakin
University) every morning – she never took the bus or had to walk – again
before Dad went off to his own work and I remember that he would often drop me
off at high school and later at Richmond station when I went to Melbourne State
College – some of these trips must have overlapped, so goodness knows how Dad
actually managed to get any of his own work done!
I did say that
he would pick us up at any time of the day or night and I can remember having
an elaborate system of phone signals (this is pre-mobile phones, of course) to
let Dad know to come pick me up from the tram stop on Burwood highway at some
ungodly hour of the night when I had stayed late at the pub in Carlton after
uni (and he was such a cool Dad, he never, ever commented on whatever state of
inebriation that I might be in at the time.)
So, as well as
being Mr Google before Google was invented, Dad was Mr. Uber, too! I think that my sisters and I worked out that
Dad spent something like thirty-six years, all told, chauffeuring us around by
the time Sharon left home. Of course, it
didn’t end there as Sharon recalls that when she was unable to drive for
several weeks after the birth of her daughter, Jade, Dad would pick her,
Brenton and Jade up from her home and drive them to Ashburton pool for her
mother’s group and he would stay and join in – so the 1950s Dad became a 1990s
Grandpa!
Dad, did, of
course, have a life of his own! He loved
his garden, which he spent hours in every weekend, meticulously hand weeding
the vast expanses of lawn, setting up a complicated series of channels in the
back yard to water his plants using grey water during the mid-1960s drought and
making his middle daughter, ME, go out every evening, for what seemed like
hours, with a bucket with holes in the bottom to walk up and down the front
lawn to keep it alive. He grew the most
gorgeous-smelling sweet peas which grew riotously up the side of the house in
pretty shades of pink and lavender whilst he always, always, had a bed of
poppies in the front garden – the significance of which I did not realise at
that time but surely were in remembrance of his fallen cobbers.
Dad loved his
sweets, always wanting to know what was for “pudding” each evening. Sharon remembers Dad stewing fruit to eat
with ice cream and she would always go over with puppy dog eyes to beg some of
the cut fruit from him – which, of course, she would always be given. Among all
his friends and carers in later life, it was well known that Dad could never
say no to a nice vanilla slice!
When Dad moved
into The Alexander late last year, a special bond was formed between my sister,
Jenny, and Dad, as every Friday, Jenny would take part in the “walking” group
with him, wheeling him up to buy his ice cream from Maccas! Coincidentally, the last meal that Dad had
was ice cream!
Dad loved being
at The Alexander (My sisters and I would like to thank all of the staff there
for their wonderful care of Dad – he could not have been in better hands), he
was always telling us how kind the carers were and how much he enjoyed the
company of the other residents and he especially enjoyed the fact the he did
really well at the Footy tipping – his secret was to always pick his favourite
team, Collingwood, and to always pick a Victorian team over an interstate one –
although he always had a dilemma when two Victorian teams played each
other. In earlier years, he did so enjoy
going to the footy with Joe and three of his grandchildren – to a
Tigers/Magpies game, of course, where he would always gently “hang” it on Joe
if the Pies won.
Once in the
nursing home, Dad looked forward each evening to Jenny’s phone call, always
saying “Hi Jen” even before she had identified herself, as he knew that she
would always be on the other end of the phone for him and even though he was
deaf, and when Jenny tried to tell him funny stories about her cat, and they
ended up talking about the mat or Pat or whatever, they would always have a
laugh together – so Jenny, Sharon and I would like to thank you for the extra
care that you took of Dad over the past few years.
Dad also enjoyed
his time with the outreach programme at St Marks in Mt Waverley, loving the
outings, the men’s group, the bingo, the quizzes (although he did joke that
nobody did very well with the quizzes as they all suffered from poor memories
these days), the music and the lunches.
He made a special friend, Ivan, who would always, always save a seat for
him, even long after Dad was no longer well enough to attend regularly.
Now, I have
mentioned that Dad loved his wife, Eleanor, and his three daughters very much
but what I haven’t told you is that Dad had a secret passion for two other, very
different women. Luckily, both were unattainable.
Dad loved Nana
Mouskouri to distraction, [here I had the AV guy play a snippet of The White Rose of Athens) with The White Rose of Athens being his favourite of
her songs but interestingly enough, Dad also had a yen for .... (and here I had him play some of Devil Gate Drive by Suzi Q) Suzi Quattro and
whilst he didn’t have to hide his interest in Nana (as it was perfectly
acceptable for a middle-aged man to have Nana Mouskouri records) he sneakily
disguised his love of Suzi Q by buying me her singles and encouraging me to
play them in the lounge room (so he could listen), with Devil Gate Drive being
his favourite Suzi Q song. We all also
remember religiously watching Countdown as a family every week – probably, now
I think of it, so Dad could get a chance to see his beloved Suzi Q.
There are so
many more memories of Dad that I could tell you, he did, after all have a very
long life – nearly ninety-eight years – for which we are very grateful but I
will finish with one last memory which so aptly sums up our Dad.
One day, about
eighteen months ago, I was sitting, having a cup of tea with Dad in his Mt
Waverley home. Dad commented that he was
sitting in Mum’s chair, as he couldn’t bear to sit in his own chair nearby and
see hers sitting empty. He then went on
to say, “You know, Kaye, despite my “troubles” (he meant being a POW in Changi
for three and a half years) and losing your mother a few years ago (I still miss
her, he said) I have been a very lucky man.
I am content with my life.” And
that was indeed my Dad, a contented, lucky man.
Rest in Peace, darling Dad. You were always
such a gentle soul and everybody who met you loved and respected you. You did
not let your POW imprisonment in Changi as a young man define you but rather it
made you stronger and you faced your peacetime life with no bitterness but a
determination to make the most of the second chance at life you were given.
Your love for your beloved Eleanor was infinite as it was for your daughters,
your son-in-law and your grandchildren. You taught
we three daughters, to be strong, independent women and gave each of us the
opportunity to make our own way in the world successfully. For this we thank you
so much. Go in peace and tranquillity, Soldier, your job is done and the life
and society we Australians now enjoy is so much better for your sacrifice. Love
you Dad, my sisters and I feel so privileged to have been your daughters.
Thank you so much everyone for the flowers... Dad would have loved them all!
... and lastly, this was a tribute made by a French FB friend I have made through my work on the Spirit of Anzac Prize.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you, my dear friends - I love each and every one of you and appreciate you all so much!
hugs,
P.S. I hope to do some Stitching bloggy posts, soon but my next one will be the last one for The Alphabet Club - "Z".
