Delivered by Roger’s brother Simon Eyland at the Memorial Service on 19th January, 2018.
Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for joining us to farewell and celebrate my dear brother Roger.
As you can see part of Roger’s life story is printed in the order of service and Ann has asked me to share some personal reflections and memories of my oldest brother today.
I have only the warmest affection and memories of Roger but as I am the “baby” of the family, being born over 16 years after Roger, some memories are stronger than others.
To this end I’ve re-read my Dad’s autobiography to refresh my thoughts and am grateful to my brother Peter for his recollections too.
Roger was born at the Moreton-in-Marsh Hospital in the Gloucestershire Cotswold’s on Thursday the 18th May 1939.
Apparently there was great excitement at his birth as he was the first Eyland boy of his generation. In particular his paternal grandfather was especially pleased that his family name would carry on.
Roger died on New Years day 2018 so that meant he had lived for 78 years, 7 months and 15 days.
As Job Chapter 14 verse 5 reminds us “a man’s days are numbered” and for Roger that number was 28,719 days.
I struggled to find any deep mathematical insight to this number – apart from the fact that it is the postcode for both Bremen in Germany and for a lovely small town called Cherokee in North Carolina in America.
I’m no mathematician but I was kind of hoping it would be a transcendental number (like ) so I could relate it to Roger’s current whereabouts but no such luck. I think any numerical relevance is best left to better mathematical brains like his wife Ann and good friend John Mack.
Roger was born into historic and trying times at the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. I can only imagine what his first years were like in England at that time of fear and great sacrifice but there is no doubt that his early experiences shaped his character into one of kindness, patience and forbearance.
The winter of 1947 was very harsh and noted for its effects across Europe and especially in the United Kingdom.
It caused severe hardships in economic terms and living conditions. There were massive disruptions of energy supply for homes, offices and factories. Animal herds froze or starved to death and people suffered greatly from the persistent cold.
It was at this time that Roger and his two younger brothers, Julian and Peter, all came down with measles followed by pneumonia and were hospitalised.
Julian sadly succumbed to these illnesses and Mum always recalled the terrible severity of that winter as even the gravediggers had difficulty digging through the frozen earth of Julian’s grave at Wednesbury Cemetery.
Dad remembered that both Roger and Peter struggled through this time ‘at some cost’.
These adversities prompted thoughts of a new life with Dad considering options of staying in Walsall to run the family firm “Eyland & Sons” (established 1760) making buckles, immigrating to Kenya to run a Tin Mine or to British Colombia Canada. Canada was seen to be too cold so to Australia’s good fortune our part of the Eyland clan immigrated as “£10 Poms” to Australia arriving at Woolloomooloo Wharf in the early morning of the 13th June 1949.
However Roger remembered arriving in Australia on his 10th birthday.
I fact-checked in preparation for today and sure enough that’s the date that the SS Ranchi arrived at Fremantle.
I remember Roger reading Tintin to me as a child and as a small aside it turns out that the S.S. Ranchi was the ship Tintin boarded in Shanghai in the The Blue Lotus with the intent of returning to Bombay, India.
On arrival down-under the family immediately moved to Kulnura on Mangrove Mountain (about 22 kilometres inland from Gosford) to live with our Great Uncle George Downes who helped pioneer the citrus-growing industry in the area.
While Dad sought work Roger stayed with Mum and Peter at Kulnura but they found the conditions trying with very cold weather – not a great deal different to what they had so recently escaped in the UK.
After a short time in a cottage in Wamberal where the family’s health improved Dad secured work in Sydney and was able to reunite the family to a house built over the water (a boatshed really) at the end of Burraneer Bay.
Although subject to high tides and seasonal weather which meant water would sometimes come through gaps in the floorboards the home was very convenient to the local school that Roger started attending – Cronulla Public School.
A family story relates how Roger came home one day with a note from the headmaster saying that he thought that Roger should have his eyes tested. It seems that his teacher asked Roger if he could see the blackboard to which Roger replied ‘What blackboard?’
He went to an optometrist named Dr. Merory in Macquarie Street,who declared Roger almost legally blind without prescribed spectacles.
The first evening he wore his new glasses he looked up into the sky and said “Oh look, I can see the stars!” At ten years old this was the first time that Roger had seen them.
It turns out Roger was quite bright after all!
In 1951 our parents bought a block of land at Engadine; about twenty-five kilometers south of Sydney and at this time a very rural locality with a population of just a few hundred scattered around the bush.
Roger worked alongside my Dad and brother on the hard laboring work of clearing land. During this time the family lived in a tent and then in a temporary dwelling which later became a garage.
Quite an excellent boys own adventure for a young man although I often wonder how my mother coped with the heat, flora and fauna.
Dad drew up plans and specifications to self-build a house.
In his autobiography my father states that Roger helped with the design and construction of the house and wrote “Roger kept an eye on things and saved me from making a mistake on several occasions”.
This was serious praise from Dad indeed who was a product of his time and not given to expressing overt approval even though we knew he loved us all deeply.
It was around this time that Roger hand built a superb radiogram which to you younger listeners was a combination of a radio and gramophone. He painstakingly soldered all the single components of resistors, capacitors and transformers onto a motherboard. No chips here thanks!
I remember that the speakers were enormous – each a cube of around 1 meters a side and being very hefty as they were made out of thick solid wood. He had to source some special heavy-duty shepherd casters to support it. And what a sound it produced!
With the aid of Readers’ Digest Classic LPs he introduced the family to an appreciation of Classical music that has lasted to today.
My partner Georgina expressed surprise at an early family gathering she attended hosted by the ever generous Ann and Roger. As we were about to start a roast lamb lunch Roger led the family, with much merriment, in the chorus of “Sheep may safely graze” (Bach Cantata Number 208). This was only the start of a conversation punctuated by many popular and choral song phrases in preference to pedestrian conversation!
While at Cronulla Public he competed for and won a place at Sydney Boys High and his academic brilliance continued on from there as you can see in the biography printed in the order of service.
I’m reliably informed that Roger first met his future wife, Ann Whight, at Sydney University where they were both tutoring before he sailed for England and further studies in the early 1960s.
As a nine year old I was lucky enough to travel to the UK with Mum on the SS Orcades and was met by Roger in his Morris Oxford car. This was a strange car, purchased from Arthur Daley Motors or somewhere – it was terribly underpowered and a left hand drive!
We all had a truly excellent adventure driving from Lands End to John o’ Groats staying at amazing and sometimes creepy bed and breakfast lodgings.
My best experience by far was when Roger let me have Whisky Marmalade on my breakfast toast in a hotel on Loch Ness.
There was a terrific incident where Roger had inadvertently done something wrong at a round a bout where a roving policeman caught him out.
Having pulled over at the policeman’s insistence Mum politely listened to the officer lecturing her on the misdemeanor committed by her and we were sent on our merry way with a wave and a smile. The officer hadn’t realized that Mum was the passenger in the left-hand drive car and Roger was the driver.
Not long after, our family delighted in listening to an LP recording sent home by Roger and Ann of their January 1965 wedding. If you’d like to see the actual church where they married (St Peter & St Paul Church Blockley) look no further than the Father Brown TV series now showing on the ABC.
Of course we listened on Roger’s speakers at the Engadine house!
I have lived a life full of Roger’s kindness and patience and seen his pride and delight in his beloved wife Ann, son David and daughter Cathy. More recently he was blessed with the added joy of a loving daughter-in-law, Sarinya, his granddaughter, Lilly and grandson, Will.
Unsurprisingly Roger met his increasing physical frailty with stoicism and strength – his family close by at all times.
I am so proud of him and rather than think of Roger gone I now look to the stars he eventually saw with delight as a young boy and know him to be there.
There are no better words to finish on than the words his family chose for the funeral announcement:
A great mathematician
And a quiet and unassuming man
Who devoted his life to study and education.
To which I would only add and ‘who loved his family dearly’.
Simon Eyland
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