Farewell to an old friend–Rest In Peace Maureen

When casting my eye over the Tributes page in The Age today, I was shocked to discover a familiar name listed, and ascertained from the names of the attributers that it was indeed my old and dear friend Maureen.

I post haste rang the persons who had placed the tribute to find out what had happened. Maureen had died last Friday morning of lung cancer, after being diagnosed with the condition in February this year.

This is a real shock as I had no inkling that she was ill. In fact the last time I saw her in early January  she was bragging about how well she felt.  And even though she always appeared cadaverous –tall,  pale and thin – she mostly had enjoyed the best of health and was a vegetarian by choice. She would have turned 62 on the 20th May.

I have known Maureen for over 40 years, first meeting her when she moved into the Parkville mansion, Mt Ievers, where I was living in the late 1960s/early 1970s . When Mt Ievers was sold to developers Maureen and I shared a house in Carlton for several years, and also both worked at Space Age Books in the 1970s.  We remained good friends through all the decades since, though didn’t see each other much, until fairly recently where we went on several outings to galleries. I hadn’t seen her since our trip to Bendigo for the Modern Love Exhibition in January, so I now bitterly regret that I had not got in touch with her over the last few months.

Maureen was fiercely independent so it would not be like to her to ring and complain about her health. She had long been looking for a job, so I assumed that she had got one and was too busy to make contact.

As I have no photos of her, I have used an Erte image to illustrate this post, as Erte’s fashion illustrations will always remind me of Maureen. She always dressed very stylishly, in beautifully designed clothes, mostly black in colour. Being tall and thin, she had a rare elegance and with her upright carriage and striking looks you could always pick her out from the crowd.

Both her parents died when she was quite young, so when I met her she was an orphan, though she is survived by her elder brother and sister.

I have many fond memories of Maureen and many amusing stories of her idiosyncrasies.

When she was in her teens Maureen had been an artist’s model, and had been painted by notable artists. She had a story about one such painting which hung on the wall in an office at La Trobe University. She was attending an interview with a tutor perhaps, who remarked when he saw her that she looked familiar. Maureen realised that the painting behind him was one of her, which explained his sense of familiarity, but didn’t let him into the secret.

She was a caring person who worked for many years providing employment advice to disadvantaged youth. I don’t think she had a cynical bone in her body and approached the world in an open hearted, perhaps somewhat naive manner.

She never married nor had children, but she owned a little terrace house in Brunswick and had lived there many years by herself by choice. She was secretive about her personal life so I don’t know if she had any special friends or lovers.  As I said before she was very independent and never asked anything of other people, and was unquestionably honest and upright in her dealings.

Highly intelligent and pure living (cigarettes were her only vice) Maureen was a smart, beautiful, elegant and charmingly eccentric person – an unique and original individual who will be grievously missed by all who knew her.

Rest in peace Maureen. I’m sorry I never got the chance to say good bye, but you’ll always live in my memory as one of this old sinner’s dearest friends and I’ll be sad when I look at the unusual presents you’ve given me over the years, as they’ll represent a little piece of Maureen for me.

Vale Cheng old friend

We received the news this morning that an old friend had died last night. Known familiarly as Cheng Wah, his real name was Graham Taylor.  I don’t know how he got his nickname but it probably had something to do with his slightly oriental appearance or maybe inscrutable expression.

I first met Cheng in September 1979 when he moved in as a tenant to a dwelling (it was the back residential section of a dress shop on a  main road in Fitzroy) I was sharing with a few other people. Here’s what I wrote in my diary at the time:

We have a new tenant – an acquaintance of Ingrid, called Graham. He’s actually OK. I felt a bit apprehensive at first, but he’s assimilated well. Rather quiet and unobtrusive, a drunk and doper, he kind of fits. He has a cat (an unfriendly to other animals creature)

That was the start of a very long friendship.

His death really didn’t come as a surprise, but the sudden onset of the serious illness that caused his death, did arouse alarm and sadness in all who knew him.  This only happened in the last few months, when it was discovered that he had cancer of the liver. By the time this was diagnosed, the cancer had moved to his spine, which in an alarmingly short time had paralysed him from the waist down. And if you’re thinking his death was the result of a wild lifestyle, you are only partly right. His father recently died of something similar which leads one to believe genetics had a part to play.

And although I am here mourning Cheng’s death, I am also here to celebrate his life and the part he played in it as my friend.

Of course we were old drinking buddies, part of the old Dan O’Connell Hotel social scene and Cricket Club. Cheng was the Cricket Club treasurer for many seasons, seeing as how he was the only member who could organise the funds effectively.

Which leads me to remember that he was a very intelligent guy, with a quirky sense of humour.  He was an IT expert and computer whiz from the time I met him, i.e. the 1970s.  When I got my first PC in 1994, it was Cheng who came round and set it up for me and showed me how to do stuff, like install software, for example.

He had an amiable temperament; was calm and good natured pretty much all the time. When I last talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have thought that he was at death’s door from his laid back attitude.  He was joking about lasting to 60. He was 52 going on 53.

After living a bachelor existence for most of his life, it wasn’t until about 11 years ago that he found a woman to settle down with. They got married and moved to Tathra on the south coast of NSW. They were very happy together and we often met up with them for lunch when Graham came to Melbourne to attend to his business as a software/network developer.

I feel very grieved for Shelly, his wife who up until the time she got together with Graham had led a very hard life, filled with disastrous choices (in partners) and other such dire situations.  I can’t even begin to imagine what she must be going through at the moment.  The last I heard from her, was that Graham was home with her and their beloved dog, Tangles, for Grand Final day. Graham was an avid supporter of Collingwood, so it is disappointing that they didn’t win last weekend, the last weekend of Graham’s life.  I’m sure he would have liked to go out with a Pies victory on his mind.

He was always a good friend to me, ever supportive and kind. We never fell out, always the best of mates. I have many happy memories of our acquaintance and will miss his humour and sensibleness.

So Cheng, farewell. It was a great pleasure knowing you all these years and I’m heartbroken that you are gone for ever.

A Long Weekend

It’s amazing I’m not exhausted after last weekend. It was intensively sociable and I seemed to spend a great deal of time in pubs.

On Friday it was the funeral and wake for my friend Gavin, and Saturday was my birthday.

Gavin’s funeral service was very moving and his wake, as with most funerals, drew people out of the past into the present, either physically or through pictures in photo albums.

It turned out Gavin had photo albums, which depicted the past. There we all were, looking so much younger in the days of our socialising at the Dan O’Connell Hotel. It had people I’d almost forgotten, Gavin’s old girlfriends, for instance, long departed from the scene. I used to be very good friends with one of them, a New Zealander, who lived close by to us. I haven’t seen her for years. I think she must have returned to New Zealand.

We gave Gavin a good send off. The funeral service was a civil one in a funeral parlour and was handled with tact. We were all a bit tearful by the end of it. He was privately cremated and his ashes will be scattered in a country area he loved.

After the service we all adjourned to a pub close by for the wake. There was a decent crowd of people, which was good to see.

On Saturday it was a lunch engagement at yet another pub, the Rose Hotel in Fitzroy. Over the past year or so a group of the old Dan O’Connell crowd have been meeting up every so often for lunch in one or other of the many fine pubs who provide food in the Melbourne inner city area. As we are all getting on - most of us being 50+ - we don’t socialise as we used to. Hence these civilised catch-up lunches. With us all being such old friends with plenty of history in common, they are very pleasant and relaxing,

It was my birthday as well, but that’s neither here nor there, it just served as an excuse to get together. The Rose is an excellent hotel, cosy, with good food. The Rose was one of the local pubs involved in the summer hotel cricket competition of which the Dan O’Connell was a part. The Rose always put on a great barbeque at cricket matches - better than any of the other competing hotels.

I might expand on the cricket matches in a later post. Suffice to say, the matches were great fun and I learned the rules of cricket, though only as a spectator.

On Sunday, another lunch, another pub. This time it was with my brother and sister in law who decided to drive down from the country for my birthday. We dined at the North Fitzroy Arms. The food was excellent and the pub was friendly, so it was another pleasant outing with the added bonus of seeing my brother and sister in law, who, as they live 100 kilometres from Melbourne, I don’t see all that often.

Got home from lunch to more visitors bringing gifts. It is very nice having one’s birthday spread over a few days. And to cap it all off the weather was mild and sunny all weekend, a welcome change from the wintry conditions that have prevailed over the past few months.

The above photo was one I selected from Gavin's old photo album. It shows Gavin in a "come and get me girls!" position in the pool room of the Dan O'Connell Hotel. Sitting next to him is another old friend, known as Cheng Wah, fortunately still alive, but moved far away.

Vale Gavin Old Friend

The news came yesterday that my old friend Gavin has passed away. It was a shock, though, owing to Gavin’s somewhat precarious state of health, not totally unexpected.

Death makes you remember, so this post will be a memorial to my old friend.

I first met Gavin in a pub circa 1981. At that time he sported a goatee and dressed like a hippy. He was an instantly likeable character and we remained friends for the rest of his life.

I last saw him sometime last year. He has lived for the past eight years in Portland a coastal town 360+ kilometres from Melbourne. It was his choice to live there; he was tired of city living and he always loved the country. This meant that his city friends rarely saw him and he rarely saw us.

So most of my memories of Gavin are from his years in the city.

After meeting Gavin in one pub the friendship continued in another pub, the Dan O’Connell hotel in Carlton. A social group formed around the Dan O’Connell and we all became drinking buddies and partygoers, a state of affairs that continued for many years. This group of people were fun and instantly created a party wherever they went. Gavin was part of this scene. The Dan O’Connell cricket club developed out of this group and had great boozy contests against other local hotels. Gavin was one of the original eleven and even though he was famous for losing his temper, and the most obvious choice for the “spit the dummy” award at the end of the season, he continued on and off in the team. His nickname was “mad dog”. It is sad to consider that of the Dan O’Connell cricket team, four have now departed life.

A person of passion, possibly manic-depressive, Gavin was also a very lovable man. He had a delightful whimsy about him and, even though he was something of a bad boy - falling into a drug habit that almost destroyed him - he was genuine and unaffected. The interesting thing about his drug habit is, that although he was a junky, he never alienated his true friends as so many junkies do.

I remember his place in Brunswick, a communal household of itinerant guests. Gavin lived in the loft and left the house to the tenants. He used to have a Boxing Day party for some years, and we’d all roll up, hung over and compare notes on Christmas Day with drinks and a barbeque.

I always found him easy to talk to. We had lots of deep and meaningful conversations over the years.

In recent years, his health suffered. He developed diabetes about 10 years ago, which forced him to moderate his lifestyle. He gave up the city shortly after contracting diabetes and moved to the country. A couple of years ago he was in a serious accident, where he fractured his skull in a fall. He was in hospital for ages and tried to escape several times, running down the road in his hospital gear with half his skull missing. We feared the worst in terms of brain damage, but amazingly he recovered. Not completely though, for he told me in one of our last conversations, that his head wasn’t right, that he heard voices telling him to do things. He felt there was someone else in his head and it gave him the creeps.

His last few years of life passed fairly peacefully, despite the brain damage, and when he died he was happy with his life in Portland.

The above photo shows Gavin and his sometime lover, always close friend, Jenny. It always seemed to me that they were soul mates and they loved each other dearly, though they couldn’t live together.

So now Gavin is gone and the voices in his head are silenced forever.

I’ll miss you mate.