Thread: Funerals......other options

Oh another anecdote I have just recalled was when we were first married we lived in a house & two doors down lived an old chap that we subsequently discovered was a WW1 Light Horseman that took part in the Battle of Beersheba. He had photos on the wall of various ME stuff but apart from mentioning a couple of things, I never thought to ask him about his service life & that would have been a very interesting yarn.

He passed on a few years later so that story was another one gone.

Beersheba: The Charge of the 4th Light Horse

Charge of the 4th Light orse brigade 1917.jpg

4Bee,

Below is a bit of the stuff I have found out.

I don't have a lot of info on my grandfather other than what I have researched, he died before I was born and extracting stories from my dad was never easy either. He was one of four brothers who emigrated from England at the turn of the 20th century, two went to Australia and two to Canada.
He had a career as a merchant seaman with the Union Steamship Company and was the master of the Maheno (yes, the one on Fraser Is), before it was retired, we have the clock from the Captain's cabin at home. He was also the master of the RMS Tahiti which broke a prop shaft and sunk in the Pacific with no loss of life.RMS Tahiti - Wikipedia


He was the master of the Monowai and set a trans Tasman speed record. T. S. S. Monowai, 1925 - 1960

During the war he was the master of the Aorangi which family folklore always said was the last ship to leave as Singapore was evacuated. It is only recently that my research has confirmed this was indeed true as she departed January 16 from Singapore and headed to Freemantle with civilian evacuees on board.Union Steam Ship Co - RMS Aorangi II - 1924 to 1954


Sadly the ships logs have disappeared from the war years


He was awarded an OBE which we have, along with the citation for meritorious service at sea. Unfortunately after retiring to Bathurst his house burnt down and a lot of his stuff was lost.

Regards,
Tote

Thanks for that Tote, he certainly had an "adventurous" life. Sounds like his OBE was well deserved.

Re the missing documents. This is what makes it so bloomin' hard to put all the pieces together later, same as photos that family members "take charge" of & then lose, neglect & then consign to the dust bin because to that generation it all means bugger all at the time.

Fortunately I was able to save some of my mob's images, not all, because they were grabbed out of pure "I want them so you can't" even though in my case that person had no family connection with the family, but took them after the house was locked up. Cops? Hardly worth the aggro. Now she has Dementia so that will be the last we see of those.

I still have a photo of my late Mother at 18 years of age as well as one that was taken with her (& my old Dad together, just before he went into hospital for the last time)
& she is the spitting image of my eldest daughter, or vice versa, & even her son (my grandson) couldn't tell the difference.

A lot still disappeared though.

IMHO hard copies of photos will be as scarce as rocking horse poo in the future as they are consigned to Hard Drives etc so will probably never see the light of day, whereas the hard copies were always handed around to look at.

Cest la vie.


Late Edit...... Have just finished reading the Aorangi link. What a hell of a ship eh? Dips lid to the "Old Man".

NB. Re. Not dissing your Grandfather. Old Man.
n 1. an informal term for father, husband¹
2. (sometimes capitals) informal a man in command, such as an employer, foreman, or captain of a ship
3. sometimes facetious an affectionate term used in addressing a man
4. (Plants) another name for southernwood

here's another option....YouTube

And I heard on the radio the other day, you can be dried down to powder.
Don.

And reconstituted again when technology catches up, just add water?

Just my luck, some bugger would get me mixed up with Laundry Detergent & down the drain I'd go.

In response to Tote, ....my maternal great grandmother , a very proper, dimunitive New Zealander, was aboard the R M S Tahiti en route Rarotonga for a holiday.

An article in a N .Z. paper described how she refused to leave her cabin until fully dressed and clutching a posy of flowers given her by her grand daughters, of whom my mother was one.

So how about that Tote , we are related by circumstance ay.

Dave