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Eulogy for Andrew Thomson

Thank you all for coming today. It means much to those of us in Andrew's family to see so many people here. Today I want to say a few things about Andrew's quite remarkable career, his loving and close relationship with my mother, his family, his keen life-long interest in sports, and his final hours.

Andrew left school at 15 to take up an apprenticeship as a steel-moulder in the ironworks of Commonwealth Steel - hard, hot and dirty work.

After a year as a moulder he set about working his way up, moved into technical drafting, and then studied mechanical engineering at night. Eventually, after 12 years of part-time study, he qualified as a mechanical engineer.

Andrew while General Manager, Sulphide, with NSW Premier Neville WranIn 1948 he joined Sulphide Corporation at Cockle Creek, in the Hunter region, where, apart from an internal transfer to Hamersley Iron, in WA, he was to remain for close on 30 years. In 1971, after 23 years with Sulphide Corporation, and many internal promotions, he was appointed General Manager of Sulphide.

In 1976, he was appointed Managing Director of another CRA company, Australian Mining & Smelting, Europe. In this role, he was in charge of a major Zinc smelter in the UK, another in Holland, and had responsibility for all the operations of AM&S in Europe.

Upon his retirement in 1979 he was Managing Director of AM&S Europe, served on the boards of another six CRA companies, and was Chairman of the International Zinc and Lead Development Association in London.

Andrew during his time working in EuropeAnd so the career that had begun pouring liquid iron into moulds in a foundry, ended with him as MD of a major Australian company and as Chairman of a major international industry development association in London. It was a career journey, I know, that brought Andrew many satisfactions.

In 1981, he came to Brisbane to take up a consultancy with Industrial Galvanizers - and while like most consultancies, this was not a long-term engagement, it certainly led to a long-term engagment of a different kind for as his professional career came to a close so, within his first year in Brisbane, his life with my mother, Eva, started.

Theirs was a relationship marked by great love and closeness. They were married in 1986 and were inseparable companions for close on a quarter of a century. They were lucky to find each other, and lucky to have each other. Towards the end, Andrew's focus was almost exclusively on Eva -- his only wish in his final weeks was to be with her. Even the nurses at the hospital would comment upon how he brightened when she would walk into the room.

Andrew and Eva's wedding, 1986 Andrew and Eva at their beloved Bilinga Beach Andrew and Eva with grandchildren Tara and Ariella

Andrew was much loved. Here today are his two daughters, Valerie and Fiona. And the memory of Andrew's face, as each of them arrived separately, at his hospital bedside last Tuesday, is a memory that will long remain with me. When he saw Val, his whole face lit up, and then, an hour later, when he first saw Fiona, it did so again. Fathers and daughters have a special bond, I think, and for him it endured to the end.

Helen Thomson, Valerie's daughter, and Andrew's granddaughter, sang the song we have just listened to. She currently pursues her musical studies and career in Holland, and she recorded that piece specifically for today.

And then, of course, there is a whole gaggle of younger grandchildren, all of whom loved Andrew dearly. Fiona and Ricky's children, Amy-Rose and Daniel, Lynne's daughter, Jasmine, who is here; and Rashelle and my three, Ariella, Tara and Marcus, the elder two of whom are here today.

Andrew and Ariella, 1998 Andrew and Tara, 1999? Andrew and Jasmine?, 2001 Andrew and Marcus, 2005 Andrew and Jasmine, 2005

As grandchildren would visit him in hospital it was a beautiful thing to see them climb up on his bed to cuddle him. Andy's lap was always a place a grandchild was welcome, and it was a refuge often sought and enjoyed.

He is much missed, I know, as a grandfather in my family, and I am sure in the other three families his passing has marked.

 

Andrew (on left) in Cook's Hill Surf Life Saving Club, 1940sAndrew at Tweed Heads Thursday tennisAndrew was a keen sportsman all his life. In his youth he played cricket, as a wicketkeeper/batsman, and packed in the front row in rugby league. He was a surf lifesaver until well in to his forties, and a keen player of golf and tennis. Indeed, he continued to play competitive tennis regularly until last year, and would hit his groundstokes with a severe back-spin that made returning them a challenge, as quite a number of people here today can attest.

In his later years, he also developed a real interest in Aussie Rules football - and given he was an erudite man of refined tastes, this was a sad, sad thing. It was, perhaps, in hindsight, the first sign of decline, the first sign that the end was nearing.

In many ways Andrew was a man typical of his generation, and his profession. Like many a front row forward, and many a mechanical engineer, he rarely wasted a word. He was as careful with words as a good Scot is with his money.

Andrew's painting of Nobby's Head, NewcastleYet in other ways Andrew was a most atypical front rower and engineer. He had a great love of opera and classical music. He dabbled with painting, and he was enormously widely read and had a huge general knowledge.

Even as recently as April this year, we were on the Gold Coast on holidays, and my wife asked me something I did not know the answer to, and I said, "Andrew will know", and we asked him, and he did. Now I cannot recall precisely what we asked him, only that he knew the answer. At the time it didn't seem important, now the fact that he knew it, seems precious. And I wish I could recall what it was we asked about.

Andrew was a genuinely erudite man, and a genuine Gentleman in the literal meaning of the word.

And, in passing, may I say, if you wish to meet an extraordinary group of gentle and loving people, visit a local palliative care ward. Without wishing in any way to detract from the honour one of you here today has received, and richly deserved, the people we as a society should really be honouring are those doctors and nurses in palliative care. Quite remarkable human beings working so very effectively to alleviate the suffering of others.

 

At the end of his life, as the cancer reduced his arms and legs to mere shadows of what they had once been, those big hands that had kept wicket and poured molten iron, were the final part of him to remain large. Right to the end, his hands remained as large as ever, and larger than mine.

And so we come to the early hours of last Saturday morning. Andrew was sleeping peacefully. His breathing was steady, if a little laboured and had been since I arrived around 9.30 pm the night before. And then, ever so quietly and peacefully, at around 5 to 3 his breathing became lighter and quieter, and at 2 mins to 3.00 it stopped altogether.

It was so calm, so peaceful, so serene, there was enormous beauty in it. Andrew simply stopped breathing, and did so surrounded by some of the many people who loved him.

And so a life that began 83 years before, a life marked by great career success, by a close and loving family, and by his great love for my mother, came to an end.

If he had looked down as his soul ascended from his body, he would have seen a small group of three people clustered around his body, looking down on it with love, and he would have seen in the corner one of his beautiful little grandchildren curled up asleep on a little mattress on the floor. There is little, I suspect, that could have given him more pleasure.

Andrew left this world a better place for his having been here.

And Andrew departed this life with the same quiet dignity with which he had lived it.

Thank you.

- Ross Buckley

Page created 29 July 2005; last updated 25 October 2005