​My maternal grandfather, Thomas Millear, who in fact was my mentor and “father”, not that my biological father was present during my life, but he was the greatest influence on my life until he died, when I was sixteen.

His advice and humanitarianism made a profound impression on me and moulded me into what I am today.

There were times that I often wondered what he was trying to pass on, but it was not until much later in life, “that the penny dropped” and all was clear!

He was the one to encourage me to participate in community service, as he did, which was very obvious, as he was always doing something for others, whether it was helping young, returned servicemen buy a farm or supplying the local school head students with a blazer, paying for country students to attend the Melbourne Lord Mayor's Camp at Portsea, buying sporting equipment for youngsters etc. This last situation was caused by his friendship with the Late Lt General Leslie Morehead, who was a teacher at the Melbourne Grammar School when he was a student there. Morehead was on the initial committee that started the camp in 1945 and from 1964 to 1968, I accompanied young boys and girls from the Riverina area and acted as troop leader for ten days during my annual holidays.

I suppose my most vivid memory of him was seeing him standing beside a commercial canning machine that he had installed in the old laundry at our home, “Deniliquin Stud Park”, meticulously overseeing the production of cans of food destined for war torn London, before immersing them in the huge copper, which always seemed to be bubbling away in the corner.
He had at the beginning of the WW2 volunteered for active duty, but due to the fact, that he was in his late 40’s and the proprietor of one of the major merino sheep studs, which was required to keep the wool industry alive, was refused, however a first war friendship with the English Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, led him to form a “Food for Britain” campaign and from 1940 until 1953, he weekly canned whatever food he could gather, not only from his own extensive garden, but friends or whoever would support his venture. I remember well the trips to town with his pallet load of food to be dropped off at the Deniliquin railway station, destined for the Melbourne wharfs.

After the war he was offered a Knighthood by King Edward V, but refused stating that, he was only doing what he could for “King and Country”.

In 1953, he and my Grandmother Ruth, made a trip back to England to catch up with friends, many being those families that his food parcels during those horrific times. However, there was one secret kept from him, for he was not one to accept accolades or commendations easily, but prior to their trip, my Uncle Ned Herring, [Lord Chief Justice of Victoria – 1944 to 1964 and Lt Governor of Victoria – 1944 to 1972] had been informed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, that he was to have the “Keys of the City of London” bestowed upon him and this was, at all costs, to be kept from him. When the time arrived and my Grandmother regaled in telling the story, he was informed by gran, that he had to dress for dinner, that is black tie and tails, to which he replied, why, we are only going down to the hotel’s dining room!!! She then informed him that they were invited out for dinner this night and a car would be there to collect them shortly, “End of story” as far as gran was concerned!!

Well, you most probably can guess the rest, the said vehicle collected them and conveyed them to the London Guild’s Hall, where they were greeted by the Lord Mayor and Councillors and as they say in the classics, “The rests history”.
 
There are so many other instances of life growing up with this giant of a man, he was a lateral thinker, who definitely looked outside the square so to speak and this was shown by his actions after the first world war.

For in 1918 my grandfather Thomas Millear hadn’t come directly home from the first war, for during the Battle of Passchendaele near Ypres, he was badly gassed with Mustard gas, which led to his repatriation to a hospital in London and upon his release he was invalided with the Lady Randolph Churchill’s, mother of Winston Churchill, for she and her late husband Lord Randolph Churchill, had been close friends of my Great Grandfather.

After his recovery, he chose to further his education in the wool industry by spending several years working with the woollen industry in Yorkshire, especially in and around the Bradford area. His claim was, that any wool producer, if they wanted to really learn about the product they produced, should go to the end source of their product and learn what the trade required of them in the production of wool. He also felt as that he was close to the mills etc at that period [1918] that purchased Australian wool; he should make the effort in learning more about his industry.
 
Where do you end when writing about the person who helped shape me, it’s always a conundrum, but I guess with brevity in mind, this would be as good as ever!!!!

David Lowing
​April 24, 2021


To add to David's introduction last session and demonstrate the impact of his grandfather, Thomas Millear's, impact on his life, David's personal profile is appended below.  It provides the most amazing picture of David's own contribution in terms of Community Service over the last 60 years or so. ....  Click on 'read more' below to proceed...

​The main topic for our April Meeting is “A memoir which has meant something to me”. I have read a few memoirs in the past month but none of them inspired me. People tend to write about the misfortunes in their lives. I don’t find their stories uplifting or inspiring. They have just dealt with what life has thrown at them, which is what most people do without the hype.
 
I have made a last minute decision to write about someone who had an influence in shaping me. This man was our next-door neighbour when I was young. He had polio as a child and as a result he was disabled. It had a huge impact on his life. He could not do manual work and in those days no employer would hire someone with a disability. He didn’t bemoan his unfortunate circumstances. When his father remarried he moved in with his unmarried aunt who lived next door to my family. This happened long before I was born. To us children he was someone who was always there. My siblings and I loved to visit him whenever we felt like it. There were no restrictions on when we could call in. He became a friend. We never questioned why an adult was one of our friends.
 
He had a very limited formal education but this didn’t deter him from advancing his learning. He transformed the sitting room of his aunt’s house into a library. The walls were lined with shelves of books. I was allowed to borrow books. He would discuss classic books and their authors with me even though I had no great interest in them. What he taught me was to love and value books. One year when I was twelve, he gave me my very first proper book for Christmas. Its title was “Knocknagow, or the Homes of Tipperary” by Charles Kickham. I loved that book. I loaned it to a friend. She never gave it back. I’m not sure if she even read it. I learned an important lesson. Be careful to whom you loan books.
 
I got pneumonia when I was seventeen and while I was recovering he kept me supplied with books. He introduced me to P.G. Wodehouse stories about “Jeeves” but they were not my taste. When I hear the name Wodehouse or Jeeves I always think of Jim.
 
Books were not his only interest. He taught himself to draw and paint. He played the piano accordion and other musical instruments. His best friend had a dance band and the instruments were kept at our neighbour’s home. Of course my sister and I had full access to them. He taught us how to play the drums. He had no success in teaching us to play the accordion but we can never complain of not having an opportunity to learn.
 
He was also a playwright. His play “Red Wine of Youth” had its inaugural performance in our local town.  It was successful and was staged across the country.
 
Without realising it, I learned so much from this incredible man. His ability to overcome his physical and financial obstacles and become a respected member of our community taught me that anything is possible. It is just a matter of commitment and dedication.
 
When I went back to Ireland, I visited his grave. I was surprised to see noted on his headstone that he was a Poet Laureate.  A photo of his headstone is attached.
 
A life well lived.

​Elizabeth Kearns
​April 2021

Lifting my fingers from my keyboard I read over the words on my screen. Satisfied I hit print and sit back with my coffee. Another letter completed.

It has been two months since I disconnected from social media. The first few days had been a little strange as I found myself scanning my phone for the familiar app that was no longer there. Sipping my coffee I reflected on how quickly the world had gone from letter writing to phone calls and then to email and finally social media. The last year had been especially tough for me and yet I had found it uncomfortable to “broadcast” our families intimate struggles with life and death through social media. In fact, I confess to being very comfortable no longer being tied to the popular platform.

Retrieving my letter from the printer I sign it and fold it, placing it into an envelope. How would my friend feel when she opened the letter? Letter writing had been something I had grown up with. My family had migrated from our New Zealand home to Canada when I was just 5 years old. We had made the journey by ship. It was an age when phone calls across the world were costly and so letters were the bridge to those we had left behind. Needless to say, I did not receive many letters myself, indeed the only ones I have any memory of were the letters from my Nana.

A letter would arrive. Written on thin “airmail” paper, lined in blue. In deference to my age, each word was constructed in distinctive printed letters rather than the cursive handwriting reserved for her correspondence with my mother. Her letters always started with a comment on the correspondence she had received from me, followed by a story about the farm animals - the principal protagonist was Mrs Duck. At the bottom of every letter Nana, more than a competent artist, would illustrate her story with pen and ink or watercolour signed “love, Nana xxx”.

Nana was a farmer's wife and she filled her letters with news of the farm and its animal inhabitants. These letters remained my most treasured item, each one read and re-read, folded and placed carefully in a small tin adorned with a picture of a young girl cuddling a cat. While the cat’s made me ill, my Nana loved them and therefore they were loved by me. I kept these childhood letters safe until they vanished when I was about 15yrs old. The final letter she wrote to me, weeks before her death at the age of 82yrs is stored safely in my old leather writing case.

My Nana was my anchor and we continued to write to each other throughout my life. As I grew from child to woman, the content of the letters became more intimate and therefore more meaningful. A wise and generous woman, my Nana continues to influence my life long after her death. The mother of eight children and grandmother to more than 38 grandchildren she made a gift of her time to me without hesitation.

Each grandchild remembers Nana a little differently based on the role she played in their lives. I remember her as a strong and independent woman. My Uncle - the keeper of the family stories - recalls she was always this way. She worked as a chauffeur and housemaid from the age of 16 years and was always the driver in her own household. As a young, unmarried woman she worked with the apparently singular purpose of flying with Sir Kingsford Smith, a dream that came true on 2 February 1933. The fact that the ticket from that flight survived her after her death is testimony to the importance of that encounter. She married my Pa in 1934.

I holidayed on the farm on many occasions and my favourite time was the early mornings. Pa would be away in the milking shed and the house was silent. It was a well-understood rule that this quiet interlude was Nana’s exclusive time to begin her day with a cup of tea and the newspaper - a ritual I respected and have taken with me to my adult life. In the early morning, a cup of coffee and the mornings' news at hand, I pay silent homage to the woman that was my Nana.


Michelle Aitken
​April 2021

I have known a lot of people over my life.  I am not convinced that any one person shaped me more than others.  Perhaps different people shaped me in different ways.

There was my mother.  She was a strong, matriarchal figure.  All the women in the family are much the same – her mother, my sister, my daughter, my nieces.  It is a family trait.  My father, like many of his generation, came back from war with what today would be diagnosed as PTSD.  My mother held us together as a family.  Mum led by example to prove that women are just a strong and capable as men.

There was the headmaster at my school.  A loving and gentle man, although very strict.  He was the one who treated the girls and boys equally – no stereotyping for him.  So perhaps he was one of the key people in my life.  He did not think that the sciences were for the boys, unlike one of the other teachers in the school.  A key memory was that the other teacher picked on me around the science and maths subjects.  His report on my Maths result at the end of year 11 was that he did not think that Maths was right for me.  Our headmaster, who taught the other Maths subject, said that he found the opposite.  I was one of the top Maths students in the class!  And was always helping the guys in the Chemistry classes.  I have a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Maths.  Who was right?

My husband has always treated me as an equal – he did not expect me to sit at home and look after the house and children.  There were the years of course when I was at home with children as childcare was not easily available in the early 1970s.  But he supported me in returning to work when the children were 4 and 6 years old.  He did not feel belittled over the later years of our working lives when I was in a more senior position and earning more than him.

Were there others?  Of course.  There was one of my work colleagues in recent years who respected me and looked up to me.  Much of the time I was the manager of the team in which he worked, but he never resented working for a woman.  There were some of course who did not like it.  And others who saw only the female, not the intelligence and skills behind the body. 

They also shaped me as they caused me to be more determined to prove that I was as capable as any man in my chosen career of Information Technology.

Because of these people, and many others, I have always refused to feel inferior in a male dominated industry because of my gender.

So, my mother and headmaster shaped me as an independent person, not accepting a female stereotype, and my husband and work colleague (among others) reinforced this.


Joy Shirley 
​(Originally shared in May 2018)