EULOGY FOR MUM Thank you all for coming here today. I understand that many of you have travelled from interstate to get here. My wife, my family and I are grateful that you have taken the time to come and join us to celebrate the life of my late mother, Gwynne Ruth Sweet. Gwynne Ruth Murphy, as she then was, was born on 15 September 1933. Mum’s family came from a little village called Annadale, in Leitrim, a County in Ireland. They were very Irish. They had a long association with Pentridge Jail. Mum’s grandfather, Frederick William Murphy, who left Ireland as a young man, spent most of his life working as a warder at Pentridge Jail, having married a good Irish girl, Sarah Louise Kearney, whose father was also a warder at Pentridge Jail. Mum was the daughter of George Sinclair Murphy and Nellie Murphy. Nellie had worked for a period of time as a psychiatric nurse at Callan Park at Gladesville prior to their marriage. At the time of their marriage, in April 1925, her father was a law clerk. Mum had a brother, also called George Sinclair Murphy who died on 24 December 1999. Both her father George and her brother George served their country in the theatre of war. Her father, George, enlisted in April 1918, one month before his 21st birthday. He returned to Australia in August 1919 having arrived in London in October 1918. At the age of 45 he enlisted for service in the Second World War and was appointed a lieutenant in September 1942 and served in Brisbane and Townsville. His appointment as a lieutenant was terminated in August 1945. At the time of his discharge he was 48. Her brother George enlisted in March 1944 after which he attended Sydney Technical College for three months in June 1944, completing a clerical course, and in April 1945 joined the second 2/2 Pioneers and served in Balikpapan and was discharged from the army in 1946. In March 1925 Mum’s father got a war services loan and purchased “Hyperva”, a house located at 11 Cameron Street, Regent where Mum’s family lived. It was sold in 1967 following the death of her mother in June 1967 and, later, her father in November 1967. Mum was born in September 1933, when the Great Depression was almost at its height at which time her father was a Warder on probation at Pentridge jail, having lost his job as a law clerk. As a child Mum was close to her mother, no doubt because the men in her family were away at the war for several years and did not come home until she was 13. Mum attended West Preston Primary school where she met her lifelong friend Marjorie Coleman as she then was who is here today. After completing primary school, she went off to Preston Girls School where she completed her Intermediate Certificate. She was an outstanding student and a prefect along with her friends Norma Barton and Josie Willdsmith. Money was tight in those days when it was largely thought, particularly in Irish working class families, that tertiary education was a waste of time and women should be barefoot, pregnant and making apple pies in the kitchen. It is no accident that my brother and sister share between us six university degrees. Mum has left the planet leaving a barrister, a physiotherapist turned specialist schoolteacher and a civil engineer with nationally recognised expertise in waste management. Mum went off to Melbourne Tech and learnt to be a gun secretary. She was a virtuous young lady who spent her spare time at the Girls Friendly Society attended Schools Christian Fellowship Camps and was a regular Church goer. She married my Da, as she referred to him, in her Irish way, in November 1955, having informed him that she would not agree to “love honour and obey him” but would “love honour and cherish him”. The Minister was not game to argue with her. My Dad was loved honoured and cherished by Mum for over 50 years. I can assure you that he was not the only person that she bestowed that benefit upon. I was born in November 1956, followed by my sister Meredith in September 1958 and my brother Colin in November 1960. Mum was very concerned about me. She wrote; “Heather and he are inseperable which is very good in that they play well together but I would like to see him playing with boys more” and later recorded that “Ever since he turned two and a little before he has really started talking in earnest”. In 1963 -64 Dad applied for jobs in Darwin, Port Moresby and finally in Alice Springs. He got the job in Alice Springs, town of 6000 people, many of whom were what city people call aboriginal, located a thousand miles from the nearest capital city. Her friends and relatives were horrified. I was told the birds flew backwards there so they would not get dust in their eyes and that you could fry an egg on the footpath. During the time we lived In Alice Springs Dad relieved for two periods of three months in Darwin, in 1967 and 1969, at the height of the wet season when people went troppo, towels went mouldy on the rack, frogs and snakes were often encountered in the toilet, where the house shook with tropical storms and the magnitude of thunder claps was such that temporary deafness was not an unforseen consequence. These things did not bother Mum. She stuck to Dad like a frequently encountered substance sticks to a blanket but cried when the house in which we lived in Alice Springs was often covered in red dust despite her best efforts. After coming to Sydney in 1972, she then went with Dad to the most isolated city in the world, Perth then had a stint in Canberra before coming back to Sydney in 1989 During our time in the Territory Mum was involved with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Red Cross in a voluntary capacity, was frequently seen at the school canteen and on school committees. When we arrived in Sydney and Dad took on an enormous mortgage, Mum went of to work as a Nurses Aid at Killara on a permanent part time basis. After a couple of years she got crook and asked for sick pay for three days and was given the bullet. Her Irish assertiveness again erupted with the Hospital being visited by the Union and the appearance of a letter written by her in a newspaper about the abysmal conditions that. Mum later, with Dad, became very active in the Probus Clubs at Narrabeen. She was for over twenty years, an active member of the Narrabeen Lakes ladies club. Look around you can you see any Ministers of Religion? Perhaps Mum did not want to inconvenience God. There is one, my brother in law Peter and he only got in the door because he married my sister. Perhaps Mum did not want to inconvenience God. Nevertheless, having acquired the accolade of being the black sheep in my conservative family there is something I would like to read to you from the Book of Proverbs, from a variety of verses. It is as follows; “A valiant woman is far beyond the price of pearls. She is hard worker strong and industrious. She knows the value of everything she makes and works late into the night. She is poor and generous to the needy. She doesn’t worry when it snows, because her family has warm clothing. She is strong and respected and not afraid of the future. She speaks gentle wisdom. She is always busy and looks after her family’s needs. Her children show their appreciation and her husband praises her. Give her credit for all she does. She deserves the respect of everyone.” Which person do you think that passage describes? I am confident that you will readily arrive at the answer. Andrew Marvell wrote “The graves a fine and private place but none I think do there embrace”. I will leave this message, if I may, on the occasion of the Celebration of the Life of my mother. The words are Andrew Marvell’s from “To his Coy Mistress” “Let us roll our strength and all. Our sweetness, up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of life thus though we cannot make our son Stand still yet we will make him run”.