60 in 60 #8 Dad, Pop, Peter Holt

 60 in 60. #8 Dad. Peter Holt

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

The Holt family reunited at 119 Aberdeen St Newtown, our spiritual home.

                                                         With cousin Danny Delaney

With his little mate Keith Grimshaw

With cousin Gordan Flint and wife Phyllis

 

It is four years since Pop died. I miss him and think about him often. I have his computer at my ‘live away from home’ in Horsham and have set the screen-saver to a slide show of the 10,000+ photos he had saved on it. This means I get regular reminders of him and all the people he knew and places he went. I love seeing these images and am often amazed at how widely he travelled in Australia. He loved this country and there is very little of it that he did not visit on his many road trips. For many years I tried to convince him to take a trip to America where he had many blogging friends but he always said he was content to stay home and see more of Australia. 

He loved going on a road trip, on his own, or with his best mate Greenie. I accompanied him a couple of times, such as when we avoided thousands of kangaroos while crossing the Nullabor, and took the back road from Norseman to Hyden to visit Wave Rock en route to Perth. I went on his last road trip too, as we did a circuit around northern Victoria with visits to his cousin Gordon and Phyllis at Tallarook, nephew John and Heather at Shepparton, sister Merle’s grave, cousin Danny and Kath Delaney at Benalla, and old friends Jan Davies at Yarrawonga and Keith Grimshaw at Cobram. He loved visiting friends and family and did regular cross-country trips to visit us kids in Wudinna and Perth.

 

Pop used to tell me that he considered a person fortunate if they had 4-5 really close friends. He greatly valued his friendships with Alan Davies, Keith Grimshaw, Warren Green, Neil McQuinn and Allan and Lorna Banfield in particular, as well as many other friends scattered around the country. 

As mentioned in chapter 7 of 60 in 60, I don’t remember Mum and Dad’s marriage being close or happy so it was not a surprise when they divorced in 1970. As a kid I remember Dad as a strict disciplinarian and I received a few (deserved) beltings. Plundering the supply of BP cigarette holders in the shed to free the prized magnets inside was the reason for one of them. Dad was the BP rep for Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula and I remember going with him as he visited BP service stations at Barwon Heads, Point Lonsdale and Werribee and playing among the 44-gallon drums at the fuel depot on Melbourne Road. 

A handsome young man

 

My best memories are of Saturday mornings when Dad took us boys to play footy at the YMCA Little League in Geelong West. Bruce and I started playing for ‘The Toughies’ in our weekly battle with ‘The Terribles’ in jumpers that hung down past our knees. The following season we played for ‘The Terrifics’ culminating in a famous Grand Final victory over ‘The Dazzlers’. Fifty years later Pop and I had a reunion at Kardinia Park with my under 9s coach, Eric Nicholls, a former Geelong player. After Saturday morning footy, often played in the rain and mud, if the Cats were playing at home we would go with Dad to the game at Kardinia Park. He would stand on the terrace behind the goal while we kids spent the afternoon perched on the fence below the scoreboard, collecting empty steel beer cans to stand on or sliding down the dirt bank behind the terrace on flattened cardboard boxes. 

 

We occasionally went with Dad when he played golf at courses like Point Lonsdale and Indented Head where we spent the afternoon playing on a boat parked under the clubhouse while he sliced his way from tee to green. I say sliced because that’s literally what he did. Pop was right-handed at everything except golf which he played left-handed! He had such a terrible slice that he faced at a 45 degree angle to the green off the tee and watched his ball sail in a regular arc over the rough and back onto the fairway. He was a member of Gold Cross golf club with Alan Davies and played at Yarra Bend in Northcote, a course he described as the best public golf course in Australia. About a year before he died he came with Zach and I for a round there- we played, he drove the buggy- and reminisced about Gold Cross days and the annual golf trip to places like Yarrawonga and Wangaratta. In the years that I lived with Dad and Julie in Queensland we were members at Rosewood and played at places like Nambour, Toowoomba and Victoria Park in Brisbane where, during one bad-tempered round, I was sent back to the car while they finished their game. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with golf!!

Pop with Daniel

 

After the divorce Dad moved to Brisbane with Julie in 1971 where they ran the BP service station on Cavendish Rd and lived at 8 Fork St Mt Gravatt. The four of us kids would go up for the Christmas holidays each year. I remember eating pizza for the first time at Surfer’s Paradise, swimming at The Oasis, having Dairy Queen ice cream at Cooparoo, having races home from the servo after work, two kids in each car, and visiting Big Pa and Auntie Ada at Amberley. When the huge 1974 floods happened we were marooned in Brisbane for an extra week until we could finally get to the airport and fly home to Perth.

 

After a very troubled year in Perth I was “sent” to live with Dad and Julie in Queensland to get some discipline! We lived at Rosewood where they owned the Caltex service station, then moved to Toowoomba in 1976. Julie ran Express Rubber Stamps and Pop drove a school bus while I went to Mt Lofty High School. Although there were still times of trouble and conflict I was pulled in to line (a bit) and I have lots of good memories of my three years in the Sunshine State. We drove to Melbourne so that I could go and see Spurs play in an end of season game and my beloved ‘Nanny Falia’* came back with us for a visit not long before she died. We took a couple of trips to Carnarvon Gorge National Park when the other kids came to Queensland and as we bush-walked I was a Datsun 240Z, Bruce was a Mini-minor and Peter King was some sort of sports car while Dad was the Mack truck blocking our path. Another trip, with Vicki and her friend Denise saw us flooded in again and stuck for days until a farmer towed us across a swollen creek with his tractor.

 

I moved back to live with Mum and the family in 1978. 

 

Dad and Julie sold up in Toowoomba and headed off on the first of their many trips around the country. I had a very memorable reunion with them at Millstream in the Pilbara. I was on a North-West school trip and they had come across the top end on their way to Perth. I celebrated Phil Kelly winning the 1979 Sandover Medal while sitting at their campfire and running through the camp announcing the news. 

 

When I finished school and started travelling (hitch-hiking) around the country I regularly met up with them when they were taking school photos for Pacific around Victoria and South Australia at places like Sale and Nuriootpa. By then they were based at Maryborough where they ran a few sheep. On one memorable visit I was called upon to chase down a renegade sheep called ‘Crazy’ who had escaped a paddock and refused to rejoin the flock. 

When I travelled overseas and lived in London for a couple of years I would grab any opportunity to phone home, oblivious to the time difference and waking Dad up in the middle of the night for an update on my adventures. Dad and I were both night owls and a visit to Maryborough, and later Gympie, usually ended in long talks into the early hours of the morning. Some of these discussions became a bit combative in the early years of my Christian conversion when I was determined to convince him he needed God. I learned to listen more and not push the issue and the brief tension in our relationship dissipated.

The weekend when we announced our engagement, 1985. It was about 9 o'clock in the morning but Julie said "I need a drink!" and cracked a bottle of champagne.

A visit to the farm at Maryborough

 

Sadly Pop and Julie’s marriage ended after 24 years. He was heart-broken and lonely for several years afterwards and always said his greatest regret was not fighting harder to try and save his marriage. He maintained his love for Julie for the rest of his life. After the turbulence of my teenage years (from having no children to suddenly becoming full-time step mother to a troublesome adolescent) Julie and I now have a close relationship and Carolyn and I enjoy catching up with her in Mildura or when she comes down to Melbourne/Geelong. I often ask her about times and events spent with Dad as she provides a strong link to memories of him.

 

After their split Pop hit the road again, ending up at Tin Can Bay where he found a supportive group of friends at the caravan park including Ken and Jackie, Lyle and Margaret and his good mate Albert. He found some peace here and later moved to ‘The Palms’ before settling at 74 Duke St Gympie. I visited him a few times over the next ten years, including taking Zach and Sophie up there at the end of our trip to the Sydney Olympics.

 

Pop would have happily lived out the rest of his days in Gympie if not for the fact he got bowel cancer in 2013. The following 12 months saw Alan, Vicki, Bruce and I all spending significant time in Gympie looking after Pop as he went through surgery, chemo and radiation treatment. He came through it very well with no pain or side effects but even after the final surgery to reconnect his bowel he never returned to ‘normal’ health or function which was a source of great frustration for him. 

At Tweed Heads, 2000

For years I had tried to get him to move back south to be closer to his family and he had stubbornly resisted, content with his self-described ‘hermit’ existence in Queensland. Getting cancer and seeing the huge amount of time and effort we kids put in to look after him brought him to the realisation that he needed to move to Victoria to be closer to everyone. 

A huge and hilarious garage sale followed and Alan and I packed up his house ready for the move to Geelong in 2014. There is no doubt that he enjoyed being back here, seeing family and friends more often but he never got used to the cold weather after the warmth of Queensland and I often found him huddled under a blanket, dozing in front of the fire and the TV when I called in.

The Holt men in Perth, early 2000s

 

I loved having him so close and we did lots of stuff together for those last couple of years, going to the footy, watching movies, cutting firewood, BBQs and meals, trips to Bendigo, Ballarat and Colac and the afore-mentioned final road trip. 

 

In 2016 we hosted a party for his 80^th birthday and had a great time with many old friends and family, including a surprise appearance by Neil, Joan and Heather McQuinn from WA. 

Greenie was there of course and Alan and Bruce came over from Perth for the big occasion.

Pop loved Australian bush poetry just as his father had before him. I wrote a poem called ‘Pushing Eighty’ for the occasion. A link to it is here. At the end of the night there was a final surprise, a Mr Whippy van serving ice creams to everyone. He had told me once that he wanted a Mr Whippy van at his funeral. 

“That was supposed to be at my funeral you fool!” he said. 

I replied “I thought it would be better for you to enjoy it with your guests”. 

And he did.

 

Dad loved movies and had a vast collection of DVDs (not all legal !), John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe (the cake for his 80^th featured the blonde bombshell). When we were kids he loved Frank Sinatra but (sadly) later in life he ditched Cranky Franky for Slim Dusty and developed a love for country music! I tried to sell as many of his hundreds of country CDs as I could at the garage sale but the other Holt siblings insisted that I keep his Slim collection. 

 

We had been planning another trip to Sydney in 2017 when he discovered the cancer had returned and was inoperable. He opted not to have any treatment and wanted to stay at home to live out his final days. Unfortunately that wasn’t feasible once the end neared and he was moved to Grace McKellar in Geelong. For the final two weeks of his life Pop was never alone 24/7. One of us stayed with him each night and during the day there was a steady stream of visitors from around the country. 

 

The first night I spent with him in the hospital was one of the most special times of my life as we shared some really significant moments and memories and I talked to him about the things I really wanted to say before he died. 

On the last day he was surrounded by his children and family including his first wife (Mum) with whom he had reconnected and built a very close friendship since his move back to Victoria. 

I was holding his hand and telling him I loved him when he took his final breath.

I loved him dearly and will always treasure the memories of the times we spent together, the road trips, the late night talks, the jokes and fun and the serious times. 

Pop was generous, funny and good company, loyal to his friends and proud of his family. He loved us deeply and did whatever he could to support and encourage us in any way he could. He had 11 grandchildren, a host of great grand kids and a wide range of friends, many of whom came to celebrate his life. I had the great honour of conducting Pop’s funeral service, and, as requested, Mr Whippy was there again.

* Nanny lived in Nathalia in the Goulbourn Valley and as little kids we couldn't say Nathalia, thus it was abbreviated to 'Falia". It was a complete misnomer because she was a wonderful Nan, definitely not a failure.

 

These are links to the eulogy and message I gave at the funeral.