For Robert McKie: 'Sample some of the sausage rolls and scones', by son Cameron McKie - 2021

13 July 2021, Heidelberg Golf Club, Melbourne, Australia

Dad would always come to your rescue. I was a skinny kid who felt the cold. One frigid cold day’s skiing on Mt Buffalo I must’ve become hypothermic and shuffled off the side of the slope to lay down in the snow for a little sleep. It was Dad who found me (I’m sure he’d purchased my bright red Spicer spray jacket for this exact scenario). Ditching his poles he scooped me up and skied down to the car, handed me over to Mum who stripped me down then wrapped me in blankets, rubbing me furiously to thaw me out while Dad turned the ignition and cranked the heater. Crisis averted. Years later, as a 16-17 year-old, stranded on the other side of town after a party, possibly following a few too many drinks… all I had to do was find a phone box and call home. Anywhere, anytime of the night or early morning. In next to no time Dad would arrive in his dressing gown. He’d drive my friends and I home to safety with no questions asked. No repercussions.

A solution for every problem. When I rolled the HR wagon a couple of months after it was gifted to me, Dad was the first person I rang. He arrived at Blairgowrie within two hours. I fully expected him to tear strips off me, but his only concern was that Nick & I were OK and that no-one else had been hurt or worse. He immediately identified the problem: my over-confidence behind the wheel clearly didn’t match my complete lack of driving skill and duly paid the $300 for me to undertake an advanced driving course (problem – solution). He’s done the same for every grandchild on their 18th birthday ever since.

Dad was adaptable. In the words of Clint Eastwood, “He improvised, he overcame”. Sometime in the 1960’s, realizing that there were too many Rob’s at Brownbuilt for him to make his mark, he promptly changed his name to Bob and set himself apart. Another fun fact: In the late 60’s he developed what sounded like a repetitive strain injury from all the note-taking during lectures at RMIT so he switched from right to left handed 6/52 out from a major exam for which he was granted a half-hour time extension. He passed the exam and wrote with that characteristic backwards-leaning, left-handed scrawl ever since.

Ratio & percentages. Up until late last year it’s been Mum’s health that was always the issue. I’d ring Dad asking after her and he’d say, “She’s 5% better today. If I can keep the food up to her and keep her hydrated, I reckon she’ll be 90% by the end of the week”. If one of the kids was unwell and had a couple of days off school he’d ring for daily updates and always ask for a wellness percentage. Just recently after he’d had a shower from his favorite Home Care worker (Tory – he was pretty fond of Tory) he said he felt a million dollars before quickly revising that figure down to $100,000 given his palliative situation.

Dad sat me down recently to discuss his funeral. He said the difference between a memorable funeral and a so-so one wasn’t so much in the eulogy or the song choices but in the food on offer afterwards. He said you had to encourage as many people as possible to stick around and mingle – and the food was the key. There needed to be plenty of it but more importantly you had to get the ratio right. Dad said he’d been to enough funerals by now to have worked out the perfect formula: 70% sausage rolls: 20% scones with jam & cream: 10% sandwiches. I had a sense I was on Candid Camera, but I duly scribbled down those percentages all the same.

Dad couldn’t always read a room. In his term as president at Watsonia Probus, he fixated on the dwindling numbers of blokes in the club. When the male-to-female ratio hit 30:70 Dad decided he’d propose a motion that only male applicants be accepted into the club until the ratio returned to 40:60. He was convinced he had the numbers but when it came to the vote at the AGM his so-called backers kept their hands firmly in their pockets, leaving Mum swinging in the breeze beside Dad, her hand held tentatively aloft. The motion was roundly rejected. It’s a good thing he never went into politics.

Dad had no interest in football but recognised that a basic knowledge of the game was an essential social networking skill, whether it be chatting with work colleagues, down at the tennis club over a round of golf. When Richmond made the 1980 GF he made sure he secured two tickets. Standing Room, Bay 13. The Tigers won easily but we didn’t hang around for the post-game celebrations. On jumping for joy at the final siren, I’d landed ankle deep in a Collingwood supporter’s Esky. Recognizing the imminent danger, Dad scooped me up and headed for the exit.

He was at the picture framer’s a few years ago helping Mum pick out a frame for one of her lovely paintings when he spotted a commemorative print of the 2017 Premiers. Mum always took care of the Christmas and Birthday shopping, and she wasn’t keen, but occasionally Dad would see something and insist they buy it: “Dood, it’s beautifully framed, has a great picture of Dusty with all the players’ signatures. Duncan will love it”. He was right – it’s hanging in pride of place over Dunc’s mantlepiece.

Dad made mistakes – rarely. The night before my final HSC exam – physics, Dad wandered into my bedroom and asked how my exam prep was going. I told him I’d essentially written off physics as my 5th subject because it was my weakest and would only carry a 10% weighting anyway. Dad refused to accept that this was a wise strategy and proceeded to teach me the entire course over the next 8 hours or so. I passed the exam on next-to-no sleep. A couple of months later Dad and I were down at the Monty Tennis Club loading up his trailer with several stacks of chairs for my 18th Birthday party. Vaguely recalling some of the basic physics he’d taught me, I threw a rope over a pile of chairs when Dad told me not to worry. He assured me they wouldn’t move on the short trip home. I wasn’t convinced but said nothing. Sure enough, as soon as he turned right out of Dobson Street 64 chairs fell out onto Para Road causing traffic chaos. The pair of us never moved so fast, scrambling to throw those chairs back into the trailer.

Measure twice. Cut once Dad was hands-on. He loved to get involved. Always turned up with a boot full of his own tools, screws, extension cords, etc. He loved passing on his knowledge. It was only really in the last couple of years that he became more of an adviser, less hands-on; but he’d still tackle smaller projects at his workbench in his garage. I’d always text him photos of any home improvements I’d made. Even at 50 I still craved his affirmation. Looking through old slides this week, I realized the scale of my projects paled into insignificance next to his. When he completed his impressive rear deck at Astley Street the building inspector told him it would still be standing long after the house had been reduced to rubble. In the week before he died, I drove him out to see Rohan & Jess’s new house under construction. It made his day, to feel involved in the building of something.

Dad wasn’t really an animal person although we must’ve worn him down at some point in the mid 70’s because he agreed to a family cat, Whiskers. Whiks was supposed to be an outside cat, but Mum and I had a pretty loose interpretation of outside, particularly in winter. So, our evening routine would be: dinner on the stove, the pair of us seated on the couch with Whiskers asleep on our laps, Dr Who on the telly. At the sound of the key in the front door I’d leap up, race to the sliding doors and toss the cat out then act like nothing happened. Whiskers would still be airborne when Dad put his keys down on the Laminex bench. He was always onto us though – maybe it was the fresh claw marks in my forearms. Dad never said anything, although he would level an occasional frown of disappointment at us both. (Mum and I tended gang up on Dad). It was a good thing when Em finally came along – she tended to take his side which evened the ledger.

Still on the subject of animals. There’s a well-known sketch of a frog and a pelican. The frog’s in trouble. His head and torso are deep inside the beak of the pelican. His legs are dangling limply outside, but his hands remain tightly gripped around the pelican’s throat. It’s titled, “Never Give Up!” This was Dad’s Mum Jean’s motto - she kept a photocopy on her fridge. Dad fought his disease tooth and nail. Like the frog he knew he was up against it from the outset, but he fought valiantly. We didn’t waste an opportunity over the past 6 months to tell Dad we loved him or to give him a hug. He accepted this affection more and more freely as the disease took its toll. It wasn’t until very late in the piece that he came to accept his fate and, in true Dad fashion, only once he was satisfied that he’d given it his all.

Thank-you all for attending today. Dad/Bob would be truly humbled by this turn-out for his send-off. But I’m sure you all see it as a fitting testament to the quality of the man. So please, if you can, make sure you stick around. Sample some of the sausage rolls and scones. Have a drink and start up a conversation with someone that also knew Dad/Bob, because friends, family and ensuring people stayed connected were what sustained him his whole life.

Robert (Bob) Roy McKie
30/11/37 - 5/7/21