I don’t expect that anybody outside the family will be interested in this but it has considerable significance to the Bill and Noni and wider Durack clan. There is rather a lot of it and it will come in small bits (27 I think) as I get organised.
Been sitting on my computer these last 24 odd years and only distributed in a few hard copies and CDs. Don’t think USB sticks were a thing at the time. Or should I say a succession computers I think originally maybe it was a 486 if that makes sense to anybody today (I was allowed to buy before Ellen and domesticity arrived - a last extravagance) . Files were huge at the time .wav as .mp3 was not a thing. Just recently figured out how to covert them.
Thanks to Ruth who organised to have all the speeches recorded I think on a tape recorder borrowed from the ABC or was it a minidisk recorder bought at great expense which I still have somewhere? and transcribed by her mate at the ABC Beth.
Clearly not my own work so thanks to all the speakers.
“DURACK OPUS - Talgai Homestead - September 20, 1998.
John Durack:
Good afternoon! Good afternoon, family members and friends. It's an enormous pleasure to welcome you all here this afternoon, to celebrate Mother and Dad. (Mother said, 'Celebrate what?') And I don't suppose I should really be welcoming family members, but it's nice to see you all here, and it's very nice to see Mother and Dad's friends, and you also Father Leonard, continuing a long association with the clergy that Mother and Dad have had over the years.
There are a few people that we'd love to have had here this afternoon, who can't be here, and I'll simply mention their names and convey their apologies:
Dad's brother, Reg, 87 years old; some excuse for not coming over from Perth, and Aunt Enid;
Dad's sister, Elizabeth, who I think is arriving in Kununurra as we sit down here this afternoon, to open some tourist development; Michael's mother; it was nice to see Michael here, and Margaret, representing his mother this afternoon.
There are also apologies from Mother's two nieces, Margaret Fisher and husband Bill; and Jo Ross; Michael and Coral Hunt, Michael being Mother's nephew; also from Mary and Ruth's Mother and Father, Cedric and Cath from Rockhampton; and friends Dean and Helen Stahmann; and Dad's partners of 40-odd years, Frank Brammer and Lou, and Ben Steckoven and Billy. We'll be thinking of them and toasting their health this afternoon. And there are also apologies we know from those who are here in spirit, and particularly the two Marys. We wish they were here.
And now if I may, I'd ask Father Leonard to say grace before we begin to eat. Thank you, Father. Father Leonard of course has been the parish priest of Mother and Dad's parish for many years, nearly 19. Father, over to you.”
Just pre digital cameras so some ok photos some pretty small - all scans.
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