When you lose someone you love you do a lot of thinking and I came to the conclusion that Ken was lucky to make it to 76.
Ken led a full life and I know from many of the people here and from phone calls I received Ken made many life long friends ,so I thought I would give you an abridged version of Ken's life story.
On the 5th of May 1927 Ken was born in Sydney to Marden and Lil. He was the baby brother to Stuart and Elva and proudly shared his birthday with his Father AND Carl Marx.
The family moved to Melbourne in 1933 that was the year Ken started to support the Sth. Melbourne Football Club and the Swans won the last Premiership in his life time.
As a child Ken had polio and spent considerable time in hospital getting treatment and complaining about the food.
Ken spent the rest of his childhood in McKinnon relatively unscathed and when he left Caulfield Grammar to start his working life one of first jobs was delivering bread by horse and cart. He remembered having a run-in with a blue heeler who took the seat out of his pants..
At seventeen Ken joined the Navy as a signalman and the highlight of his career was trying to send the ship in the wrong direction and breaking his right wrist.
Ken led a full life and I know from many of the people here and from phone calls I received Ken made many life long friends ,so I thought I would give you an abridged version of Ken's life story.
On the 5th of May 1927 Ken was born in Sydney to Marden and Lil. He was the baby brother to Stuart and Elva and proudly shared his birthday with his Father AND Carl Marx.
The family moved to Melbourne in 1933 that was the year Ken started to support the Sth. Melbourne Football Club and the Swans won the last Premiership in his life time.
As a child Ken had polio and spent considerable time in hospital getting treatment and complaining about the food.
Ken spent the rest of his childhood in McKinnon relatively unscathed and when he left Caulfield Grammar to start his working life one of first jobs was delivering bread by horse and cart. He remembered having a run-in with a blue heeler who took the seat out of his pants..
At seventeen Ken joined the Navy as a signalman and the highlight of his career was trying to send the ship in the wrong direction and breaking his right wrist.
This is the eulogy as written and delivered at Ken’s funeral by his daughter Kym.
Many would remember the days of the 6 o'clock swill, Ken and friend Mac decided Tassie had more civilised drinking hours and flew there. There, Ken going to the loo in the middle of the night, took the wrong turn and fell out of the first floor window of the hotel injuring his pelvis and landing himself in the Launceston hospital where the food was less than ordinary.
Funnily enough his mate Max went to Hobart, the bus crashed and Max finished up in the Hobart hospital. I do not know what he thought of the food.
Funnily enough his mate Max went to Hobart, the bus crashed and Max finished up in the Hobart hospital. I do not know what he thought of the food.
Ken, Max and Tassie survived and back in Victoria Ken starts work at HC Sleighs where he meets our mother Pat and they marry in 1952. About a year later Ken returning from Torquay where he loved to surf had a car accident and winds up in the Geelong hospital where is right arm is amputated, this was distressing enough but not as distressing as the food. By now you gather Ken did like his tucker.
We move on a few years, brother Bret and I are in the world and we are living in Oakleigh. It is Christmas and Pat our mother is waiting for Ken to assemble the swing which is hidden and the shed when she receives a phone call “ Pat don’t panic but Ken has just been run over by a tram”.
Ken was the guest of the Royal Melbourne hospital where they pin the ankle back to the rest of him. And my Mother brings him food. Oh, by the way somewhere between the arm amputation and the leg pinning he has his appendix out at St. Andrews.
We move on a few years, brother Bret and I are in the world and we are living in Oakleigh. It is Christmas and Pat our mother is waiting for Ken to assemble the swing which is hidden and the shed when she receives a phone call “ Pat don’t panic but Ken has just been run over by a tram”.
Ken was the guest of the Royal Melbourne hospital where they pin the ankle back to the rest of him. And my Mother brings him food. Oh, by the way somewhere between the arm amputation and the leg pinning he has his appendix out at St. Andrews.
Ken gets through his service station years in Fitzroy healthily and relatively safely at his first pub the Silver Gate in South Melbourne, except for a stay at the Sandringham Private Hospital for a leg operation where the food was great, oysters, cray, red wine and when he made a bet he could walk to Ballarat in 24 hours , which he did , he was so blistered , stiff and sore afterwards he could hardly move for a week.
While at his next pub, the Meaghers, also in Sth Melbourne, when during the traditional Christmas beer strike Ken ended up taking a barrel delivery late at night when one got away and smashed into him breaking his other ankle. This time he went off the Prince Henry.
It was at this time that his passion the SMFC (Sth Melb. Football Club) was sent to Sydney and I think that hurt more than the ankle.
Ken actually had no injuries during the times he had a Wedding Reception place in Bacchus March and during his motel years at Lakes Entrance.
Ken retired to the Island, a place he truly loved and became involved in the community. Like the Pope and Mao, Ken was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. . He managed to snap his tendon in his left shoulder helping with the revegetation of the old tip site. In the later years the disease started to take its toll with Ken taking a few tumbles which had him visiting the Bairnsdale hospital at times.
But Ken always kept trying as someone said to me only the other day. Ken probably got the grant for the ferry because he just wore them down.
Call it determination or stubbornness; I think there is a fine line between the two. Ken would never put anything in the too hard basket. He always kept trying
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Written 2004
Since Ken’s death 11 months ago I have had many ups and downs: faced a few challenges, but one of the most daunting was Ken’s filing cabinet. I kept looking at it, squibbing it, it was far too hard.
Then a couple of days ago before Helga and Kate asked me to speak today I took a deep breath and tackled the filing cabinet and found “The Ferry File “
It is quite a thick file, containing correspondence to the Shire, State Parliamentarians, Federal Parliamentarians, data on how much traffic uses the ferry, calculations on the costs of maintaining a section of road between Bairnsdale and Mallacoota compared with the maintenance of the ferry, articles on other free ferries in the country, letters written by the late Peter Manuel, letters to newspapers and much correspondence with poor Colin Morrison (?) of the Department of Infrastructure. Poor Colin not only did he receive letters from Ken but frequent phone calls.
I quote a friend of Ken’s on his phone calls to poor Colin “ Give it a rest Ken, you’re wasting your time , they aren’t going to listen to you silly old bugger” or words to that effect. I was even more supportive. But Ken persevered and was smug and triumphant when the letter arrived announcing the grant. As one Councillor put it, she believed they approved the grant because Ken wore them down; they just could not take anymore.
But as we all know the ferry toll battle started well before Ken, Colin and the Department of Infrastructure. It began about nine years ago when the then Commissioners descended upon us and with the user pays mentality foisted the toll upon us.
R.I.P was formed and struggle began AHHHHH!! What radicals we were !! Remember the days of the public rallies; the ferry blockade and the storming of the Shire Offices? If I remember correctly the Councillors and the staff locked themselves in the building fearing God only knows what from the Raymond Island rabble.
Of course others worked hard for many years; Harry Osborn, Keith Hayes, Ken Toohey, Peter Manuel, to mention a few, were fighting from the beginning, frequently making trips to Melbourne to plead our case. Over the years there were many setbacks and at times we seemed so close, other times we seemed miles away, but the fight continued.
When R.I.P and R.I.A.L combined and RICA was formed with Ron Langley and Peter Markwell continuing the charge.
I think there is a fine line between stubbornness and determination and no matter how you feel about Ken, whether you though he was a stubborn old bastard or a determined old bastard on his behalf I would like to thank his fellow antagonists. I am sure there are people I should have mentioned; thanks to all of you and a thank you to the Councillors for their support, but we especially acknowledge and congratulate the Raymond Island community who passionately felt the toll was unjust and believed and proved you can fight city hall.
We are very fortunate to live on Raymond Island and should be proud of our community and never stop appreciating what we have here. It is so easy to become complacent and start taking the Island for granted and if this happens all the things we love about the Island will slowly slip away.
A reflection by Ken’s daughter Kym of his involvement with the ferry toll.
