IN MEMORIAM

These past two weeks Australia has lost two living legends whom we picture as having really lived. Unfortunately, both lost their lives tragically. Both with different passions, but both made their mark. Both were offered state funerals. Steve Irwin's family has famously declined the offer saying he would have wanted to be sent off like an "ordinary bloke". Peter Brock, the racing legend, is however being accorded a state funeral in Victoria.

Two years ago, in September I lost my own living legend. My Grandmother - Iris Helen Usher nee Wilbraham (1913 - 2004). She lived on a farm two hours north of Brisbane and to get there we would actually need to pass the Irwin family's Australia Zoo in Beerwah, near the Landsborough turnoff. My Grandmother had just the sort of mind that made me often think she was far more equipped to handle the modern world than I am. She had a quick mind and was a fast driver. I used to tell her that to my friends I refered to her as my Speedy Gonzales Grandma. The cheeky lady was tickled pink by this. On our errand cum shopping trips to Imbil or Gympie, she explained to me numerous times how to navigate safely on gravel roads in the face of the occasional oncoming car - press your brakes to slow the car down, and only then move the vehicle off to the road shoulder. This was to avoid the car skidding.

Grandma Usher learnt to drive in 1952 when she had to begin taking my Uncle Graeme (born 1939) to the train station in Brooloo on Monday mornings for him to catch the train to Gympie for school. She would again make the trip on Friday afternoons to pick him up for the weekend. My Grandfather, Leonard William Usher (1911 - 1975) worked in a saw mill in the day. In the mornings and after work he would milk his dairy cattle that grazed on his 640 acre property. On weekends he would also tend to the beef cattle he was rearing over the ridge on some forestry land he had leased. It was thus left to my Grandmother to do the ferrying to and from the train station. She also did this for my Mum Helen (born 1941) and her younger brother Darrel (born 1945) when they came of age. She enjoyed driving and actually drove until about the age of 87. Her last car was a spiffy red Mazda Astina.

My Grandmother had her share of difficulties but always managed a certain twinkle in her step. Her eldest Graeme, became a victim to polio in the last polio outbreak that began in the summer of 1950. He was attending a small school in Brooloo and of the 30 odd students there, 6 contracted the virus which also resulted in 1 death. Graeme who was 11 at the time, spent a year in hospital, from 18th Feb 1951 to 17th Feb 1952. He was sent to a hospital in Brisbane to be put onto an Iron Lung and the polio caused paralysis in his left leg. Brisbane was about a 2 hour drive from the farm. My Grandmother could only visit him once a month. The mail man would throw the newspaper - The Courier Mail - at the gate of the property every morning on his way through. Once a month she would arrange for him to pick her up on the way and drop her off in Landsborough where she would take the train down to Brisbane. In the evening she would take the train to Eumundi where my Grandfather would then pick her up. I remember many times when I myself took the train to Eumundi and she would be there to pick me up.

My Grandfather died in 1975. He had a weak heart although officially the cause of death was pneumonia. I only met him on my first trip to Australia when I was 4. I do remember him, . . . perhaps more the aura of him. When my Grandmother and Grandfather went off on their first date, they both were on horseback! I remember feeling a great mix of thrill and fear while us kids looked out the window when he and some other guy had a horse on the ground with its face covered in cloth. The were doing something to the hoof or shoe of this horse which looked huge lying down. I remember the air was tense so whatever was happening must have been dangerous. My Grandmother inherited the farm and in doing so she became the owner of the only privately owned mountain in South East Queensland. The bluff on that mountain was named Duwirri, an aboriginal term. It was from this bluff that her ashes were released into the wind after she died.

I vividly remember one evening at dusk while I was near the tank of molasses by the gate seeing her scurrying out of the barn to the farmhouse just before twilight having a jug in her hand. The jug was full of fresh milk scooped from a large storage tank of freshly milked milk. I remember the taste of Sarspirilla, a soft drink that for some reason is associated with my memory of her. Bacon never tasted as good as when she cooked us bacon and eggs. The smell of frying bacon awoke us from our beds on the verandah on the far side of the house. Under the house was sandy and dusty and sometimes we played there looking for eggs the chickens had layed. She had strawberries in her garden and she made her own jam. She also made shortbread and fruitcake. Before she was married, being the oldest, she would sew the clothes for the rest of her family. She sewed her own wedding dress, as did my mother in her wedding to my father in 1965. Incidently, my mother, who is also a great seamstress, also sewed my elder sisters wedding dress.

At the farm, I remember us kids sitting in the scoop of the tractor - driven by my Uncle Darrel - heading into the paddocks in search of a tree to cut down that would suit as a Christmas tree. There was a creek at the bottom of the hill upon which her farmhouse was and in that creek lived a rare platypus - the famous egg laying mammal. Us kids never saw it but heard it splashing into the water when hearing us come near. Being a creek of stones, the water was always very cold. Sometimes when there was a suitable vine we could swing and splash into the water - carefully though - depending on the height of the water which could be shallow if there had not been much rain. I also remember following my father out one evening when it had been wet, looking for yabbies. He would find holes, put a baited string in and later pull the string out and if we were lucky there was a claw grabbing onto the bait. Those yabbies were quickly put into a bucket and later cooked!

My Grandmother was an accomplished pianist. Nearly every time I would visit I would get her to play the "Robins Return" which has since become a favorite of mine. She later gave me a copy of the sheet music to the song as well as a Thompson grade 1 piano book! She loved sport too and always had the radio on in the afternoons, listening to the cricket; and she always knew what was happening on the world tennis circuit. Her letters would always let us know the latest on these fronts as well as the latest rainfall measurements and a good opinionated dose of politics. One letter told of a decision of the authorities to name the bridge at one end of her property "Iris Bridge" after her. She however said she prefered it called "Usher Bridge" which it is now called. She would call me and her other grandchildren on our birthdays and I still treasure her last call to me in May 2004. She was by then in a nursing home in the dainty town of Maleny. Her voice sounded quiet and frail and she would breathe her last just 4 months later.

I can still hear her words :

"Good, better, best - never let it rest
Till your good is better and your better best . . . . . ."


. . In Memoriam . .