A tribute to a couple of Champion People, my great mates, John & Olive; Aussie Brian’s Mum & Dad.
Aussie Brian's Mum & Dad, Champion Folks; Shed builders extraordinaire! Mum's nearly 78 & Dad's close on 83! (Click image to enlarge).
Words “don’t” fail me about my wonderful folks. Helpful, generous, kind, forgiving, immediately spring to mind, and at nearly 78 & 83 years old, they’re still doing it!
A fiercely proud Englishman, John enlisted in the British Royal Navy and is a WW2 veteran. They still recall the shock of London being bombed by the Germans.
John & Olive, Wedding Day; 21st August 1950 at Wanstead in London. Still the best of mates over 60 years later! (Click image to enlarge).
I’ll call Dad John from here on in. Several weeks ago on the phone I told him I was “building a bit of a shed”, and struggling on my own doing it. John said, “I’ll see you in a couple of days!, we’re due for holiday”, so him and Mum(Olive) drove 1,800 kms/1120 miles from Sydney to give me a hand. That’s a round trip of 3,600 kms/2,240 miles!
Just “a bit of a shed”, 15.5 mtrs x 12 mtrs(186 sq mtrs), or about 2,000 sq feet in that quaint old American way of measuring things.
90 cubic mtrs/3,200 cubic feet of compacted fill, 33 cubic mtrs/1,165 cubic feet of concrete, a huge amount of re-inforcing steel and tons of heavy gauge steel shed framing and cladding. It didn’t faze John one bit, he didn’t bat an eyelid.
John & Olive were here for about 6 weeks. Every morning at sunrise I’d see John wandering over to me with his cup of tea, and he’d be into it. Come around 4 o’clock in the afternoon I’d have to force him to knock off for the day! Then around 5 o’clock, I’d see them both up on the verandah of the house sitting together with a glass of red wine, chatting away, still like star struck lovers after over 60 years together.
These 2 wonderful people are truly amazing for their age. Olive treated me to delicious meals every night, found every shirt and pair of trousers with buttons missing and mended them.
And John, you’d think he’d be worn out from helping me with that “bit of a shed”. Oh no, not this grand old boy. I told him one day when it was really hot, to have a spell and I’d do a bit on my own. Shortly after I hear him poking around in the old shed, then walking up to the house with a paint brush. When I went up to the house that evening, John says, “Mind where you’re walking, I’ve touched up a patch of varnish on the floor.”
From past experience, when John drops in for a holiday, Aussie Brian chuckles and thinks, “Here we go again.”
The shed building team, Olive, John & Aussie Brian. Thanks for the love and support, I'm a lucky man to have you. (Click image to enlarge).
So as predicted, over the 6 weeks, a “new patch” of varnish appeared every day, until the whole floor including the timber panelling in the kitchen was all done. That’s not to mention de-frosting and cleaning 4 fridges & freezers, fixing broken windows and doors, the list goes on and on!
A short tribute to 2 Champion People, the world’s full of them, and some people are lucky enough to have them as folks. I love you both, and thank you for everything.
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Just as Brian is proud of them, they should be proud of Brian! He's a champion bloke and they're champion parents! And please don't forget Frankie!
Brian you have been blessed to have wonderful parents, they are a generation that is slowly dieing off, a generation that went through a depression and a world war. Your dad at 83 is still going strong along with your mom, that’s remarkable.
Over here in the United States we have a government under the direction of the Kenyan devil, that feels that old people should die and if they need any medical service that would help them to prolong life they need not apply, just die.
I hope that is not the case in Australia.
The building that you and your dad are assembling would be called a warehouse in my country; a shed would be on a somewhat smaller scale.
Frank: Champion people they are, although I'm bigger than them, the shadow I cast doesn't compare to the ones they cast. Just lovely people, and I'm a lucky benefactor. And Frankie, they adore her, who doesn't :-)
AC: Blessed I am! Your right, people of their age have been through plenty of hard times, I love listening to them telling me their story of what it was like. The great thing is, it's not told as a "woe is me" tale. In a way I think it made them who they are today.
Life's full of challenges, some people cringe at them, others like my lovely folks just get stuck into them!
As far as what's happening in the U.S., unless you use the internet to "dig a bit deeper", as I do, then the only news stories in the main stream media about Obama are all glossy and rosey. So me and Dad had some "heated debates" :-) about it, but I made it "off topic". Just my way of showing Dad some respect.
And that "bit of a shed", shouldn't every boy have one! I've got two others, but they all seem to get filled up with "boys toys!"
John & Olive, Champion People, Champion Folks!
Thanks for sharing