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Elizabeth Hetherington Jones
(Carruthers) 28th July 1919 to 6th
August 2003 |
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Mr.
Jones wishes to acknowledge with thanks the Chinese Consul General in Sydney
for his kindness and his representative Mr. Zhang Peng, Consul (Economic and
Commercial), who attended the funeral service. |
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Over the years we
all have attended many funerals of friends and associates, but family remains
the hardest. To depart with dignity
is special. Janice, and I think Greg were in that situation. Michael was an exceptionally brave young
man facing enormous suffering. Both my parents faced the terror of a slow and
non-recoverable death. My father knew
his situation even though severely brain damaged from a motor vehicle
accident – he definitely went strong.
My mother was lucid until the very end, conversing with her doctor and
staff at the Ocean View Nursing Home in Mona Vale within 5 minutes of her
passing. Yet she suffered the great
indignity, especially for her, of paralysis for nearly three years and slow
memory deterioration for up to ten. So what does a son
– an only son say at his mother’s funeral? Platitudes are
tempting. However that has never been my style and certainly would not be
expected by my mother. Keep it simple
people tell me, however the life of a mother for a son is never simple. So for better or
worse I intend to make some observations, interspersed with music that
reflects some of the passions of her life.
These will address four issues: ·
words to describe
my mother ·
the stages in her
life ·
the issues in her
life ·
and what mattered
to her I must be frank and
say that from a very young age I had a ‘love/hate’ relationship with my
mother. She had the qualities of
courage, independence and loyalty that were inspiring during times of crisis,
but also a ‘born to rule’ streak that was demeaning to herself and those
around her. In my view, and perhaps
wrongly, it was the Carruthers’ trait in spades. I ‘fought’ her tooth and nail right up until her death. Like all of us she
was both the product and the victim of her times. Mother was born on
Swain’s Island which was owned by her family in the Samoan Islands at the end
of Empire – Eastern Samoa is still known as American Samoa and part of the
United States, whilst Western Samoa was then a German colony about to be
placed under New Zealand Administration, and now of course an independent
country. Her mother having died very
early, she departed the “family kingdom” at the age of four years for New
Zealand, only once to return briefly for a few months in 1938. Yet the planter colonial culture was
forever in her blood. She was
exceptionally clever at school being two levels higher then her age at an
Auckland Girls Grammar School, still claiming to be the most prestigious in
New Zealand, winning prizes in English, History and sporting endeavour, as
well as being granted a scholarship to study in Italy as a coloratura opera
singer. This young ladies did not do
and her father would not give permission.
Indeed mother often spoke of the hurt of his apparent disregard for
her academic success, and she did not complete her final year of high school
opting instead for a two year secretarial course. Nevertheless the ideal of ‘family’ always remained a somewhat
obsessional trait with mother. Evacuated from
Papua New Guinea to Sydney in mid 1942 she did secretarial work for the Head
of the Australian Hygiene Unit at Victoria Barracks and among other things
‘danced’. Sometime towards the end of
the Second World War in 1944/45 she met my father who had recently won the
Combined Allied Ballroom Dance Championships in Melbourne and they married in
February 1946. I came along in
November 1947. Dad served in the
Australian Air Force and was at Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, the first defeat
of the Japanese Army in the Pacific War, and this experience scarred him for
the rest of his life – in part it was the ‘why didn’t I die’ syndrome. Anyway he gave up dancing completely by
around 1950. This was a
characteristic of both my parents, very hard workers in what they were doing
but with the capacity to move on to new challenges without regrets. The over 30 years
from December 1949 to March 1983 is the period of Liberal or Conservative
dominance in Australia, broken only by the chaos of the three elections the
Whitlam Federal Labor Government faced during 1972/75. It is essentially the
productive years of my parents’ lives. There was a harmony between them. My father physically strong and mentally
sharp – I always said and still believe he was smarter then my mother in the
quality of his thinking. However there was a latent conservatism which grew
stronger from his disillusionment with the Whitlam, Hawke and Keating Labor
Governments – it was what is now known as the ‘Clinton Factor”. He was in some respects an old fashioned
man who could not tolerate the sleaziness of modern politics. On the other hand my mother was extremely
well read, knowledgeable about the world, progressive in her thinking which
shocked some people, yet there was always something missing – a dream or
child like aspect of pretend and unreality. Perhaps it was too many Hollywood
Movies – she definitely played roles and I would tease her by saying the
Star, Movie and Scene. Both my parents
were ‘social democrats’ but non-joiners of organizations. Somewhat bohemian
in lifestyle and yet at the same time being very Presbyterian in values, and
strong believers in a better world, resolute on questions of human rights and
the principles of Nuremberg, and emphatic supporters of China’s right to a
place in the sun rather than accept the tutelage of either the USA or Soviet
Union – China was not America’s to lose in 1949 and the Soviets were false
friends up to the 1969 military confrontation on the Amur River. My father had been involved with the
anti-Japanese struggle as early as 1934 and the military provocations in
Northern China. My mother was a
foundation member of the Australia China Friendship Society in Melbourne in
1950 and Sydney in 1951. Obviously
the books and discussion influenced me so that I studied Chinese history at
High School and government at Sydney University and have been involve one way
or another with China over 40 years. In every decade
from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s my mother was involved directly or
indirectly with politics and China, either with my father or with me. I can remember the meetings of the
Friendship Society – even though most of the attendees were communists whom
mother did not like, she thought many of them were too fanatical. I can remember the Chinese Opera and
Acrobatic performances, the debates on the Menzies Government’s anti-communist
legislation, the Korean War and the French in Indo-China and the Nationalist
Forces on Taiwan. In the 1960s she
was active in the protest movement against the Vietnam War (as well as other
issues such as Aboriginal Rights), then was disillusioned by the Whitlam
Government and its aftermath in the mid 1970s (but she still supported me in
my political campaigns in the heartland of the Liberal Party on the North
Shore of Sydney). She encouraged me
in my small contribution to the struggle to win corporate support for the
Hawke and Keating Governments in the 1980s.
She typed for Nelson Mandela and South Africa, Carlos Menem and
Argentina, as well as for India and China.
She was still typing for ‘the cause’ up until about 1994 when her
deteriorating memory became too much and she retired unhappily to her
religion. For example most of
the typing for the ACCCI sponsored Late W.J. Liu O.B.E. Memorial Scrolls
Project initiated by Chamber in late 1988, and exhibited at the Mandarin
Club, Australian Museum and Mitchell Galleries at the State Library of New
South Wales in Sydney, Victorian Museum in Melbourne and Golden Dragon Museum
in Bendigo Victoria, and then the Australian High Court in Canberra during
the early 1990s, was done by my mother and gratefully acknowledged by his son
Mr. Bo Liu, grandson Mr. Richard Liu and family. Incidently I first met Billy
Liu when my mother introduced me to him at a meeting of the Australia China
Friendship Society in early 1966 – this was a connection of nearly 30 years
totally outside my father’s knowledge. It is absolutely
the truth to say that the ACCCI would have collapsed in the early 1990s if it
were not for my mother’s resolute determination to provide the logistical
office support at Belrose that any organization needs to survive. Even in her early 70s she was
administratively better than anyone I have ever met – and I have met some
pretty smart women, one of course was Janice my deceased wife and another of
a totally different vintage being Marilyn Walker. Mother was very thrilled that the Chamber recognised the
contribution of my family to Australia China economic relations over so many
years when in 1997 the British Consul General in Sydney, Mr. Philip Morrice,
presented the last ACCCI Achiever of the Year Award to my father at a
ceremony in the Rugby Club in Sydney.
He was the non-executive chairman of Indauspac Pty Ltd, Corporate
Consultants on International Affairs, between 1979 and 1996. Subsequently on mother’s birthday in July
2001 the Chinese Consul General in Sydney wrote to her and sent flowers with
congratulations on 50 years membership of the Australia China Friendship
Society – the President of ACFS, Mr James Flowers, and the Senior Vice
President of ACCCI, Mr John Zerby, did the same. There were some
character building periods in mother’s life. Her education at an
exclusive girls school during the decade of the Depression when so many men
were unemployed – she felt guilty. Her safety and
enjoyment of the ‘good times’ during the Pacific War when other women’s men
were dieing at the front – she felt guilty. Her work in the
News Room of the ABC during the decade of the 50s when the distortion of the
truth and straight out lies kept a disreputable federal government in office
– she felt guilty. Her work in the private sector during the 1960s when
corporate and individual greed really took off, yet at a time young men were
being conscripted for the Vietnam War – she felt guilty. |
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Finally mother was
a Royalist and believed in the British Empire from the perspective that it
was global and brought both a form of civilization and equality to the peoples
of the world. It did not matter
whether you were in India, or South Africa, Canada, Malaya or New Zealand etc
you all studied William Shakespeare and Robbie Burns. She believed in her family and gloried in
her ancestry back to Baron de Rufus and the Norman Conquest of England in
1066. Indeed I was always either
unkind or derisive. I used to embellish by saying that there were William,
and great, great, great granddad, old Rufus of Carruthers carrying the spears
at the battle of Hastings, when Rufus yelled out to the Saxon King Harold
–‘look up’ and when he did a Norman arrow got him between the eyes - and so
English history was changed because of the Carruthers. However my father
always took this history very seriously – he admired mother’s father. Only late in life did he tell me why he
agreed to my name Michael Cornelius Hetherington Jones – Cornelius being his
family name and Hetherington my mother’s. His mother was Christina Richmond
and his parents had known of the Hetherington-Carruthers, part of the family
of the founder of the Scots Church in Collins Street, Melbourne. His father had been born in Young NSW in
1871; Hetherington-Carruthers and his
second wife had lived in Singleton NSW from 1841. It was and still is a very small world. My parents admired
each other greatly, and as I get older I understand them a little more each
year. They will be cremated, their
ashes mixed together and spread on the family property, the property they
pioneered from late 1952. Thank you for you
attendance this afternoon and your farewell to my mother. |
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Ave Maria – Beniamino Gigli |
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