COMMUNITY HEALTH DATES TO REMEMBER ... - Platypus Country

Frank KellawayPoet, bird and music loverdied Friday July 13, 2012.His family would liketo thank the Brotherhoodof St Laurence for their compassionate care and kindness.Rest in peaceCarlotta, Dan and MariaThe Age July 17 2010Photograph downloaded from http://illuminatiguzzisti.forumcircle.com/viewtopic.php?t=22727&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15An interview with Frank about his poetry can be found at http://www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/7071.htmlRemembering FrankMy most vivid memories of Frank’s time in Tubbut arehis meals and his dogs. The dogs were very large andshaggy. They seemed to be totally untrained so whenFrank stopped the car and went to open the back doorthe dogs would be clawing at the windows. As Frank wasdeaf, he wouldn’t hear us saying “Keep the dogs in untilwe tie ours up.” So the dogs would be out the door andstraight away attacking our dogs. Woolly would give asgood as he got. The next morning his head was swollenas it had been completely inside the other dog’s mouth.A trip to see Steven Reed in Delegate and soon all waswell.An invitation to dinner with Frank and Carmel was ahighlight. They were both good cooks. I remember agreat meal of abalone, so tender and creamy. And ahuge saucepan of the most delicious and flavoursomepumpkin soup. Frank’s staying power was short so hewould often go to bed soon after we had eaten. But if hehad planned a poetry reading he would stay up and readus some of his work. His observation of wildlife wassuperb and he was willing to teach us. He took uppainting in oils in his later years. He was a man of manyparts and very creative.Valerie AuerFrank Kellaway (1922– 2012), born London of Australian parents,graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1948 and workedas a librarian and as a lecturer at the Preston Institute ofTechnology in Melbourne. His volumes of poetry are Beanstalk(1973) and Mare's Nest (1978). He has also written fiction, AStraight Furrow (1960), The Quest for Golden Dan (1962) andGolden Dan (1976), and verse libretti for the music of GeorgeDreyfus in operas performed in Australia and abroad. He won firstprize in the inaugural National Poetry Competition in 1986.Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/frankkellaway#ixzz21mOhzWHdIt was by accident that I learned of Frank’s death; googling afterlocating him on the National Library’s Trove site, I found anobituary page in The Age. Too late to interview him. Using goodold Google again, I found Frank’s son Dan who now makesclassical guitars an hour from Scone. During a long friendly phonecall he brought me up to date on Frank’s life post-Tubbut.Frank Kellaway and Carmel Saville moved to Tubbut in the late1970s and were part of our social and cultural life until 1988.Frank enjoyed good food and drink and loved sharing meals withfriends. For a while he hosted a writer’s group which must havetried his patience as we were such amateurs and writing was hislife. We may not have been fully aware of his literary reputation.The excerpt above from the Oxford Companion to AustralianLiterature reveals how he will be remembered by the world.Frank retained a close friendship with Oliver and Fran Gasperini,who purchased land on Willis Road/McKillops Road, which lasteduntil he died. At one time, Frank lived in a 4 metre by 4 metre hutthat Oli built him on their Stony Rises property. Furthermore,Carmel remained his close friend and helper although theirintimate relationship ended before they left Tubbut.In his last couple of decades, Frank found painting to be morelucrative than poetry. Dan bought him a Hiace van fitted out as acamper which he reckons Frank drove around Australia 15 times.As he went, he painted, and his naïve landscapes sold for around$100 at exhibitions. Because he was prolific, he was able to makeenough from sales to finance the next trip, and so it went.According to Dan, Frank never learned how to change a sparkplug or even a tyre, sitting by the roadside until a consideratemotorist passed when he got a puncture.A couple of years ago, Frank was close to death in hospital. Hedidn’t want to be brought back to a second-rate life and asked forthose wishes to be respected. After emerging from a coma,however, Dan reckons that he ‘lost the will to fight for the right todie’ and recovered, to ‘go downhill’ as he tried various livingoptions. Not an easy person to live with, he tried some friends inDarwin, followed by Dan’s place (then near Singleton) where hewore out his welcome. After a stint in a ’terrible place’ for old folkin Melbourne, he found himself a bed at Sambell Lodge in CliftonHill run by the Brotherhood of St Lawrence where he was lookedafter exceptionally well. Twice he suffered breakages—the firsttime he tried to die with the help of a taxi outside the Lodge butbroke a leg instead. His death resulted from infection aftersurgery to fix a femur broken in five places. His memory was atlong last failing him; it was time to go.Frank sold his letters to the National Library, as he correspondedwith many famous Australians such as Manning Clark, JudithWright, Gwen Harwood, Stephen Murray-Smith and Ken Inglis.(see http://www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/7071.html for acomplete list of his papers).Deb