LOUIS VICTORY SHEATHER 14 July 1952 – 21 September 2018
Delivered Friday 28 September 2018 – 3.30pm at 46 Sydney Road, Holbrook.
Louis would be embarrassed at you all coming from so far and near all present in his honour. I suspect however, he would be annoyed at missing a drink and a catch up. Because that’s what I think he would want this to be, a party. Being humble and a gentleman, he would have difficulty in it being in his honour. The last thing he would want is for us to be melancholy and despondent at his behest.
I can speak in a little detail about Louis since 1966 when we met in the same boarding house and dormitory at school. At school he was one of the most energetic, agile, coordinated, athletic boys in the year. He was an excellent swimming pool high board diver. He skied since he was knee high to a grasshopper and that year he skied until, he broke one of his legs while skiing. Once on crutches, he could out run you by using the cutches and skipping along on his one good leg. He was an excellent trampoline enthusiast. I doubt there was a trampoline maneuverer not performed by him. He was a sportsman playing Aussie Rules and being a rower particularly in the later years of schooling.
Even in those young days of being 14 years of age as we were then, he had a wicked sense of humour. In those days we had fountain pens. Some of us didn’t migrate early to the concept of a cartridge pen so we carried around in our bags, an ink bottle. One of Louis’s tricks in the class room while the teacher was not looking, was to catch your eye and then in a flash lob high in the air, an ink bottle aimed at a landing right on you. Relieved at your successful catch, he could hardly contain himself.
The next year our year went up to Timbertop. We went into different Units. Our contact decreased but the friendship maintained. So much so the next year 1968, instead of going home for Easter he invited me back to his home at Merribong. We flew to Albury in a DC 4 to be met by Ray and Betty in their Merc. I remember travelling for the first time at 100 miles an hour on the way to his family property at Little Billabong.
He was a fantastic shot with a rifle. I remember going out with him to protect the sheep from being taken by foxes and things in the air. Even in 1968 we went out with a 303. The fact we were 15 years of age mattered nothing. He was lying across the bonnet with the rifle pointing somewhere into the air but I couldn’t see what the hell he was aiming at. “What are trying to shoot” I said. “That bastard eagle!” On the furthest ridge high in a tree, I could see a dot of a thing on a branch. Unfortunately for it, a puff of feathers soon descended to the ground. However, Louis had a love of nature. He had a pet kangaroo for years and of course we all remember his little dogs particularly Ellie.
Even in those young days he had his own vehicle. He stripped-down a Ford Prefect to leave just the chassis, engine (with no cover), flat back tray and a bench seat. He could go sideways down the dirt track and just as you thought you were about to die against the fence at a ramp, he would straighten up and go through the ramp. His driving abilities, trips up north and later pursuits from the road authorities remain legendary.
I spoke about his sense of humour. (I apologise to the younger amongst us who may not appreciate this). That same Easter weekend I mentioned, a small group of us in one car went to the Hume Weir Race Track. After a good day and on the way home, it being Easter Sunday, the driver, (one of the family who lived on the family property), stopped in Dean Street at a pub to get some supplies for the trip home. “Go down the back and ask for X” were the directions to the oldest looking bloke amongst us (not Louis or me). Purchase completed and on the way home there was a hitch hiker on the outskirts of Albury. Our vehicle pulled over, Louis wound down his window and asked “Do you want a lift mate?” “Yes” this bloke said sheepishly as he looked down into a full vehicle. Louis then snapped back “Well get a lift with Tarax”.
Louis left school the next year not too long before the rest of us went home for the Christmas holidays. His want for a cigarette and a beer were well established, such that the headmaster presumably determined his continuance at the school was not in Louis’s or the school’s best interest.
Louis and I didn’t see much of each other for some years after that. We caught up more regularly in the eighties. But in the seventies whenever I drove to Melbourne, I would stop at the family property to be welcomed by his most hospital parents - even if Louis was not there.
He had a passion for helicopters. He obtained his licence in the early 90’s in a helicopter he bought and assembled with Myles Tomkins at Caboolture. After getting his licence he flew his Bell 47 machine back to Little Billabong. The helicopter was good for Louis’s health. He reframed from the consumption of alcoholic beverages when he knew he had to fly his machine - and fly it he did well. One day he flew Colin Casey and myself on a pub crawl. We first landed at the Tooma pub in the paddock out the back and walked in through the kitchen door. As I recall they were relatives or he knew the owners (I certainly hoped so). Casey and I had a couple of beers while Louis had a lemon squash. Yes, some of you would say I was mistaken – no, as I say he did not drink while he flew and he did not drink eight hours before. We left Tooma and went to the Khancoban Hotel. We landed in the car park on the side of the pub outside the main bar. I remember well how Louis put some wheels out and pushed the chopper into a car spot. We all had a meal and Casey and I had some more beers, but Louis was still on the lemon squash and getting agitated. As we were leaving there, Louis said “Thank Christ, the ants were following me.”
The flight back was spectacular. Low along Swampy Creek and the Murray, Louis navigated by pubs. Over the Tintaldra Pub. Onto the Walwa Pub which we flew over and then onto the Jingellic Pub. The plan was just to have a look and not land. The poplar trees out the back along the road were a lovely sight. Louis hovered the skids of the chopper so low that they were touching the top of these trees. We had an excellent view of the hotel and a long line of motor bikes along the road. A couple must have been standing there keeping a watch or had come outside to see what the din was. Anyway, the next thing we saw was these two blokes bending over giving us a brown eye.
Louis took exception to this and while giving out a line of obscenities directed at these two, flew around just to the back of the pub to a flat area on the other side of a creek. We got out. Louis briskly led the way. We came in through the river door to a near empty pub. Walking around into the empty main bar, the publican saw us and said “Bloody hell Louis, you bastard! They thought you were the drug squad.”
Louis’s character will remain in our memories. Part of his character was his turn of phrase. While driving with him, you might hear him say “There’s a pub. My father always said don’t go passed without leaning on the door, it might open.”
As he goes to the fridge at some hour too early in the morning and offers you a beer, you say back “No thanks mate I don’t drink before midday.” He retorts “It’s fucken midday somewhere in the world.”
After the years of smoking, he would cough up something which he would discretely spit out and say “Yeah, get and walk you bastard.”
In a moment’s lack of concentration, Louis might lose balance for a moment – “Who pushed me.”
Taking the first sip of beer for the day – “Can’t understand how they make it so cheap.”
Being late in the evening and after a solid session with beer coming out your ears he’d say “We’ll have one more, the next pub might be closed.”
His friendship was warm. I remember him as a generous man. He would lend people his equipment and do jobs for people knowing he would eventually get paid. Despite his façade, he was a gentle man who always respected his elders.
He was organised in his own way. If he was driving and someone rang him on his mobile which for a while, he prided himself at having the smallest on the market, he would write a note on the windscreen in texter, all while driving along at a speed well in excess of the limit. His organisation sometimes extending to his own transport. We were drinking in the Middle; it was getting late. He said “We’ll have a pizza for tea. I’ll organise it.” “How’s that going to happen and how are we getting back?” “I’ll organise something.” Then I hear him on his phone “We want a family size Supreme (always with a change of some kind which I don’t recall), delivered up to 46 Sydney Road, you know where it is you’ve been there, and can you pull into the Middle, we’ll get in with you.”
I’m missing the lunch tours usually to Jingellic, Woomargama, Malvern and Calcian. On the mornings of those departures, we would be at the Middle (having the first for the day) - also known as his Riverina Office, and before departing, Louis would say to me “We better get some trackers,” then saying to the bar attendant, “Can you put them in a bag with a little ice please me old mate?”
Louis is the only person I know to have had a key to a hotel as a patron. He did in the days when Hogan was at the Middle.
There are many stories we can tell each other about Louis and we should do that today. It’s sad that there will be no new ones.
I want to say that knowing Louis as I have for all these years, I know he really fell for Debbie. I saw that the two of them got on so very well. There was a love in Louis’s eyes for Debbie. He may have said it previously, but he certainly repeated with me on meeting Debbie, that he was a one bone man.
The last few years have been very tough ones for Debbie. I won’t go through the accidents Louis had and one very serious one, and not forgetting the operations he put his body through. Suffice to say he has been on a decline over the last years, requiring close attention and care -which Debbie gave and supervised. I know Louis was very grateful to his loved carer Debbie and to his other carers.
I’m mindful of this box (the coffin next to me) and how it might spring open with him saying “For fuck’s sake McKeown, will you shut up so they can have a drink.”
