For those I’ve not had the privilege of meeting yet, I’m
Harry’s son and eldest Roger. Standing beside me as always is my wingmate, my
darling wife Helen who has agreed to take over if necessary. I feel very privileged to speak on behalf on our
family to share a little of Dad’s life with you today. I hope that I can paint
a picture that will give an adequate account of this special person in our
lives that we honour here today.
Harrison Fawcett Davison, known to most people as Harry,
was born in Cairns on 8 April, 1928 – Easter Sunday. Dad’s parents, Jane (although Grandma was known
to her friends as Jenny) and George Davison, migrated from Manchester, England
some years earlier. Jenny’s family was Welsh, a heritage Dad carried with some
pride including giving me the Welsh middle name “Lloyd”. Dad’s older sister, Margaret is unable to be
here today but is represented by my cousin Ian.
Harry was too young to enlist in WW2, much to his
disappointment really especially when Japan brought the conflict to the Coral
Sea in May 1942. He did however contribute to the war effort as a volunteer
messenger around Cairns and few years after the war he also joined the Citizen
Airforce.
Dad’s first jobs were brief stints with the Queensland Crown
Prosecution Service and Cairns Electricity. My first memories of Dad’s work
were of his time as an representative with the Adelaide Steamship Company. Adsteam
was a major Australian coastal cargo and passenger shipping line and agency. Dad’s
job meant he got to spend considerable amounts of time at Cairns port indulging
his love of ships and all things maritime, as well as travelling to various
parts of the country by ship.
Dad would very much have liked me to pursue a career in
the shipping industry. My first memory of boarding a ship was with Dad around
the age of five during the loading the vessel with raw sugar in bags, by hand, and
later I clearly recall sharing his maritime passion when we went aboard a tug
in Sydney Harbour on 18 January 1964 to witness the launching of the Tasmanian
ferry “Empress of Australia” at Cockatoo Island Dockyard.
Dad studied accountancy part time and he later undertook
more part time study (by correspondence) to become a qualified company
secretary. I came to understand how
tough the part time and correspondence study must have been for him (especially
with a young family) when much later when I began my Engineering degree as a
part time student and a Post Grad Diploma by correspondence.
The majority of Dad’s career with the Mourilyan Bulk Sugar
Terminal, then in a senior management position with CSR Sugar Division and also
in semi-retirement with the heritage steam locomotive company, 3801 Limited drew
on his professional skills and business administration experience.
Mum and Dad met while Mum was visiting Cairns on holidays
with her parents. They were married in August 1956 in Mum’s home town of Gunnedah. Back home in Cairns the family grew to five
with 3 children – me followed two years later by sister Karyl the two more to
baby sister Lerae. We moved from Cairns to Mourilyan Harbour in 1962 where Dad
took up the position as human resources and business administrator of the Bulk
Sugar Terminal where he had more contact with ships and another of his
interests, trains. In this case we’re talking about narrow gauge rail haulage
of raw sugar from the mills to the port. Derailments were not uncommon and all
three of us would accompany Dad to the scene of the accident on our pushbikes.
Dad took early retirement from CSR in the late 80s and in
1993 he and Mum moved to the tranquil delights of Bowen Mountain from where Dad
could indulge in his 3rd great interest, planes. Bowen Mountain for anyone not familiar with
the location of this community is situated on the same ridge and just south of
Kurrajong Heights. With a view across the Hawkesbury Valley, Dad would sit on
the verandah with his binoculars and watch a variety of military aircraft training
and operating out of RAAF Base Richmond.
Dad kept pretty active in retirement. Among the many interests and passions, he joined
fellow enthusiastic volunteers restoring vintage railway carriages for 3801
Limited, worked for the Electoral Commission for quite a few State and Federal elections,
and volunteered with TAFE and University of Western Sydney assisting students
with literacy issues. Dad also volunteered and got a huge kick out of being
part of the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games.
As he always knew it would, the steep block in Bowen
Mountain (especially the mowing) eventually became a bit much and in 2002 Mum
and Dad moved to Glengarra Retirement Village here on the Central Coast. We hope you can come back to Glengarra after
this service for a bite to eat and to experience this beautiful community
setting.
Along the way Lerae, Karyl and I have married and have provided
Dad and Mum with grandchildren and great grandchildren who’ve been a source of
great pride and much love. Each of them
has their own special memories of times with their Bapa including bushwalking in
the National Park in Bowen Mountain and excursions to the Zig Zag Railway.
Perhaps we might get a glimpse of some of those memories from several of Dad’s
grandchildren in a little while.
I think it would be fair to say that Dad was a quiet
achiever. Although many of you would
know of Dad’s lifelong involvement in choirs, you might not know that as a
young man he was a popular soloist and Champion Baritone at North Queensland Eisteddfods
on number of occasions. He performed in
a lead role and was a star of many Choral Society theatre productions in Cairns
and Innisfail. He was an integral part of the North Queensland Eisteddfod
movement for many years, and was invited to conduct the combined eisteddfod
choirs several times.
Many of our significant childhood memories involved watching
Dad’s performances and travelling with Dad and Mum around Far North Queensland
as the Innisfail Choral Society staged musical theatre productions in various regional
centres and competed at annual Eisteddfods.
In a few moments my brother in law Steve Johnston will
pay tribute to Dad’s love of musical theatre with a song made popular by tenor
Mario Lanza from the movie version of the operetta The Student Prince. Dad played the role of Dr. Engel (the Prince's
Tutor) in Innisfail in the mid 60’s.
The annual musical was a family affair and Dad’s two very
cute blond daughters would extract the price of a souvenir program from
practically every ticket holder as they arrived for every performance.
As well as being a chorister, Dad led the church choir at
West Epping for many years and was also a member and conductor of the community
choir in Richmond. Dad and Mum often joined the choir at St John of God in
North Richmond and took great pleasure in singing with the 700 voice Combined
Church Choirs annual performances of Handel’s Messiah at the Sydney Town Hall. Here
on the Central Coast, Dad and Mum have been active members of the Tuggerah
Lakes Choral Society. We very much appreciate Dad and Mum’s fellow Choral
Society members sharing their gift of song with us all here today.
Some of Dad’s wonderful qualities and gifts have somehow
rubbed off on me. I also love to sing in choirs and small ensembles in 4 part
harmony. My dear cousin Jen reminded me the other day of Dad’s dedication to
the surrealist BBC Radio Comedy series the Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Harry
Secombe and Peter Sellers. I also delighted in upholding this family tradition
by tuning into ABC Radio National at 12 noon on Saturdays until its demise from
this time slot in 2004.
Karyl and I both share Dad’s great interest in test cricket.
He was always openly and unashamedly cynical about the outcome of some One Day
International matches, believing that the limited overs format was highly
vulnerable to match fixing. Although he was not the slightest bit
superstitious, I think there’s a hint of dramatic irony that Dad was sent back
to the pavilion at 87.
It would probably be fair to say that I’ve inherited and
share Dad’s sense of duty, and a commitment to detail and organisation. Sadly though
I seem to have fallen off the wagon when it came to neatness and order. Dad’s
desk and study was always immaculate.
During the last few weeks of his life I felt privileged
to have had the opportunity to help with his care together with Mum and my
sisters and to be by his side as he slipped away was profoundly moving
experience that I’m extremely grateful for.
Prepared
by Karyl and Roger
Delivered
by Roger Friday, 3 July 2015
I'd like to thank Shirlee, Roger, Karyl and
Lerae for giving me the honour of saying a few words today as we celebrate the
life of someone so special to us all.
My memories of Harry span back as long as I
can remember- as a young child my visits to the Davison family home at
Mourilyan Harbour, with the sweet smell of sugar in the terminals just down the
road and the excitement I had when Harry would take me into the terminals.
Later, after Harry and family moved to
Carlingford, the visits Harry would make to my family in Townsville during his
trips to Queensland bulk sugar terminals were always something I looked forward
to. I can well remember Harry
introducing me to Perrier mineral water some 40 years ago - perhaps it is no
coincidence that this remains my favourite mineral water.
In more recent years I have special
memories of playing golf with Harry at Richmond and on another visit to Harry
and Shirlee at Bowen Mountain a great family day out on the Zig Zag Railway
when my own son was young.
My last visit with Harry and Shirlee, when
Harry was well, was last year when we enjoyed an excellent lunch together at a
very good restaurant that Harry had selected.
I recall him being disappointed that the weather limited a magnificent
view along the coast. He needn't have
been concerned the view, the food and the company were all great.
The last time I saw Harry was a few weeks
ago as he moved into the final stages of his well lived life. Despite being unwell Harry, as he had
throughout his life, was concerned with family - wanting to know about how his
sister Margaret, and my wife Sherril were and he was particularly interested in
the progress of our son David.
Perhaps the most poignant memory of my last
visit occurred just before I left with Harry asking me to make sure I gave his
love and fond wishes to my mother, his sister Margaret, for a happy 94th
birthday in a few weeks.
Today is my mother's 94th birthday and on
Wednesday night when I visited Mum before leaving to travel to Tumbi Umbi, Mum spoke sadly about how she had lost her
only brother and that she would miss him.
I have lost my only Uncle, a man whom I
held in high regard, and all of us gathered today farewell a man of great
integrity, much loved by us all.
Thank you Harry for touching my life in so
many positive ways.
Prepared and delivered by Ian McKay
Friday, 3 July 2015
Hello I’m Lerae the youngest (baby) daughter, and Steve my husband and my tower of strength.
Many of you would not have known that Dad suffered from Clinical Depression since before he and Mum were married and continued to suffer from it all through his life.
Understanding and Treatment for Depression was very different then and it was only seen as a transitory illness. Once you got better, all treatment was stopped.
It wasn’t helped that depression also had a huge stigma and as soon as Dad was off medication, he couldn’t be labeled with having Depression.
Unfortunately that meant that dad’s depression always came back every 2-3 years throughout his life. The bad episodes required hospitalization and shock treatments. As you can imagine this has required amazing love, support and sacrifices from Mum as she had to keep family life as normal as possible for Roger, Karyl and I.
It wasn’t until I was diagnosed and treated for major clinical depression in my 30’s that I understood that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain and often, a particular chemical has stopped being produced altogether, requiring daily medication to replace it, similar to diabetics.
This knowledge armed mum to talk to doctors about putting Dad on medication permenantly. Finally some hope of a normal life. The problem was that GP’s, not knowing enough about depression or Dad’s full history, thought dad didn’t need the medication and took him off it.
This resulted in yet another hospitalization and we finally convinced Dad he needed to stay on medication.
Dad was amazingly strong or he would never have gotten through the constant bouts of depression and still have a positive outlook on life, which he passed on to us.
Dad felt very guilty that he had passed on the Depression gene.
I was able assure him, that I wasn’t sorry at all, that it had enabled me to help a lot of people with depression and that was a good thing.
Roger has told you that the first 40 yrs of Dads life was spent in North Queensland.
The down side to Dad living in North Queensland was sun damage to his skin and he was having skin cancers cut out regularly and progressively more as he got older.
Dad enjoyed relatively good physical health, besides a Quadruple bypass heart surgery in his 50’s and a triple bypass in his 70’s, until late last year when he was diagnosed with an untreatable cancer of the liver and other soft tissue. He wasn’t showing any symptoms until March and no pain until the last few weeks, which we were very thankful for.
In his last weeks Dad was upset that he was letting everyone down. He should be up doing things, not being lazy and sitting around.
Dad always had an incredible sense of responsibility and commitment. Even when he was too weak to walk from his bed to the lounge room, he got his clothes out ready to take his turn to go and collect the papers in the morning even though we told him he didn’t need to anymore, such was his commitment.
Changing now to a different aspect of Dads life, which was his love of music and theatre which he passed on to me. He played many lead roles, directed and produced many musicals. I treasure the memories I have of going to rehearsals and shows, being back stage and watching him performing on stage.
Dad watched me on stage a number of times and we would discuss my frustrations with ongoing rehearsals and he would say ‘be careful you’ll end up Directing’. And I did! As he was so experienced he was a hard man to impress, but I think he was proud of me, as I was of him.
As Dads cancer took hold I was able to come up and spend time caring for him and supporting Mum and later with Roger and Karyl’s help we were able to care for dad at home. Even in the last week Dad showed his cheeky side which was such a beautiful memory to leave us with.
One of the lovely memories I have is Dad telling one of the nurses that I was a great help and I was in the wrong profession, I should have been a nurse. It was an absolute honour to be able care for dad and be with him to the end.
Prepared and delivered by Lerae
Friday, 3 July 2015
Dad taught us to use our brains – we were never simply given the answer but encouraged to go and work it out – typically it would be Dad, how do I spell serendipity? Go and look it up in the dictionary! It also meant that we had many a spirited discussion around the dinner table.
Dad also taught us to work hard – the protestant work ethic continues to be alive and well in his children.
And he taught us to be good people. Dad was an excellent role model in this regard. Even when he retired from full time work, dad filled his time volunteering for various organisations, helping people in a range of ways. One of those organisations was the church. He was elected as a member of the NSW Synod one year, but even his dedication to the church didn’t extend to doing that a second time.
Dad had a great sense of humour, and even as the cancer robbed him of health, he was quick with a joke with the palliative care nurses as they cared for him.
Despite being seemingly quiet, even shy, Dad would talk to just about anyone. It was one of the ways he got so much out of travel – he’d chat with the locals and find out the local gen.
For me the things than marked Dad’s life were:
- His love of Mum, and his family
- And his efforts to provide for us the best he could
- His love of trains, planes and ships (that’s not a boat, it’s a ship), cricket and of course music.
Music gave Dad an enormous amount of pleasure;
And he gave a lot of people pleasure through his music.
And music was the way Dad expressed his faith in God – through song.
So what other text would we use today than Psalm 95 – the Psalms were like the hymn book of the congregation of Israel and were written to be sung:
Psalm 95
Come let us sing to God
Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before the presence of God with thanksgiving,
Crying out joyfully with psalms.
For our God is a great God, and a great sovereign above all Gods.
In your hands, O God, are the depths of the earth,
And the peaks of the mountains are yours also.
The sea is yours, for you made it, and your hands have moulded the dry land.
Come, let us worship and bow down, and kneel before our Creator.
You God, are the Creator, and we are the people of your pasture, and the sheep of your hand.
Oh that today we would listen to your voice!
Prepared and delivered by Karyl
Friday, 3 July 2015
Today we lay Bapa to rest.
Bapa has been one of the biggest influences on my life right from birth when both Bapa and Nan were there to help raise me.
I was also able to spend most of my school holidays with Nan and Bapa at Bowen Mountain were we would enjoy playing in the park, swimming in the pool or going to play golf at Richmond. We would both look forward to coming home from golf with lunch ready and on special occasions a peach milkshake.
Last night I was listening to Ava and Blake playing in their room and Blake asked Ava "Is Bapa sick?"
To that she replied "no, not anymore buddy - he has gone to heaven. But we can still go to Nanny and Bapa's".
I will always love you Bapa and we will never forget you.
Prepared and delivered by Jason
Friday, 3 July 2015
