FUNERAL SERVICE FOR BRIAN PAUL (RED) RYDER
NAROOMA CEMETERY 15 SEPT. 2010

At 1400 we gathered at the Narooma Cemetery to pay our respects to “Red” Ryder.

As Red had had a very chequered career, including serving as an R/O in the RAN on Sydney, Barcoo, Quiberon and at Harman, a brief stint in DCA, many trips to the Antarctic, serving on the Esso oil rigs in Bass Strait, not to mention his “jobs” in foreign countries, there was a wide group of people in attendance to ‘celebrate’ his very colourful life.

After a brief introduction by the celebrant, Cathy Milliken from Tuross Heads, she introduced Peter Baggot to deliver his eulogy (copy attached). Peter did a brilliant job of compiling and delivering (for want of better words) and how he ‘held it together’ is beyond me, as we all shed a tear or two.

Red’s coffin, which was adorned with a Navy Ensign, Antarctic flag, morse key and his Navy and Polar medals plus his Barcoo cap (all removed appropriately) was then lowered to his resting place, which was, at his request, “so that he could look out to sea”!

We all said our farewells as they played some of Red’s favourite music.

All were then invited to the Dalmeny Bowling Club, one of Red’s ‘wet canteens’ for the wake and enjoyed the odd glass of soft drink!! Needless to say the ‘soft drink’ kept many of us there for many hours and Peter, Jacko Jackson, John McNally and myself, along with a few ‘quiet drinkers’ from his ‘South Pole’ days, plus his family, of course, kept Red with us for quite a while. He would have been proud of us, especially as he wasn’t paying!!

Keghead Weaver

          
           
   

Eulogy written and presented by Peter Baggot at the burial Service for
Brian Paul (Red) Ryder, 15th September 2010, Narooma Cemetery

It is my sad and also happy duty to speak of Red for all of us. This wonderful man was born in Armidale, New South Wales in 1935 to Bob and Phyllis Ryder. An only child, he went to the Christian Brothers College, where he was a good student and an average altar boy.

Red left school and worked in his dad’s Post Office at Bundarra, a nearby country town. Imagine Red on a bike - he wouldn’t have reached the pedals and must have ridden it side-saddle!

He went to Sydney to train as a Postmaster General (PMG) ‘sparker’ at the Telegraphist-in-Training school, and was accommodated in a boarding house in Kensington, which is next to Randwick Race Course, the Sydney Cricket Ground and not far from Rushcutters Bay Boxing Stadium – omens there!

In 1953, Red joined the Royal Australian Navy and after completing his Navy telegraphist’s course, was sent to sea. First on HMAS Sydney for a brief time, then to HMAS Barcoo, an old WW2 frigate connected to survey duties. Barcoo was painted white, with a yellow funnel. This is where I met Red – the P.O. telegraphist wisely putting us on night shift together, Red the senior, me his junior. During the night with no supervision Red’s vivid imagination would have us re-enacting action scenes from WW2 movies. He would be Richard Widmark and me June Allyson – that is imagination!

Red’s next draft was Canberra Radio Station where for two years he diligently chopped wood and efficiently radioed worldwide. He always wanted to go back to sea and go up top and fortunately he was drafted to HMAS Quiberon which took him on a ten-month tour of duty in the Far East.

He nearly didn’t make it back to the ship one night. He climbed the statue of King Edward VI to kiss his pompous ass, but his lips couldn’t reach his royal bottom so he tried to give his horse a raspberry. He slipped and broke his arm. He convinced the Navy he could carry out his duties and off he went.

Red left the Navy and went into the Department of Civil Aviation as a Communications Officer in Sydney. He did the school, learned air-ground radio, WX and nav and thus qualified was sent to an aerodrome at a place called Dubbo in Western New South Wales, where he was bored! Red applied for a position as a radio operator was accepted and over the next 15 years Red did seven trips Down South to the frozen continent [Antarctica], once to Mawson, twice to Wilkes, once to Davis and three times to Macquarie Island. On each trip, unsuspecting expeditioners learned his tricks. He would knock the draft board and move the dart board, spit on the end of your snooker cue. At ping-pong when he served, the net was low; when you served the net was high. At 500 and euchre he seemed to have more cards than you, and at cribbage you never won because that was a game of trust.

For being an outstanding explorer, Red was awarded the Polar Medal by the Queen. Many years later a retired British Admiral was writing a book about every explorer that had a receive d a polar medal and in his letter to Red, he asked if he took it out, gave it a polish and put it in the ‘fridge every now and then to make it feel comfy. Red wrote back “no” as he had lost it, so the good Admiral, who knows all things about medals, went down to Whitehall and got him another one.

In 1968, Red went overseas and on the Shaw Savill liner to Europe he met Jenny Holyoak, the daughter of the Conservative former Prime Minister of New Zealand. She and Red frolicked all over London town. Imagine Red in London with all those statues! He went to Spain where he drank lots of cheap red wine, chased senoritas in size XXOS dresses, cheered the bull and boo-ed the toreador.

Next stop was Canada. He was employed by a Canadian airline in the NW Territories where he landed aeroplanes on the frozen lake and when that was unsafe on the soft tundra, he also had to look after the diesel generator. How I don’t know – he couldn’t drive a car! Another duty was to help the native Inuits, because during the brief summer, flies were unbearable and in winter food scarce. Red gave appropriate assistance. He befriended Henri, the native Chief and they were great mates.

In 1970, Red came home to Australia, looked up Dottie, a young lady he had met prior to going overseas and they rekindled their torrid and tumultuous relationship. Blue McDonald likened them to two welterweights going at it for the title. I don’t know who won the crown – I suspect Dottie did!

Red loved Dottie and they were married. Red was working on the oil rigs in Bass Strait and the nearest place to have the family was Sale. Two years they lived in Sale until Dottie wished to move to Melbourne and start her own business career and start breeding and showing her pure-bred British Bulldogs. He got Dottie established in Melbourne, reconfigured the back yard to breeding specifications and prepared to go where a young man pleases. He told Dot, “I hate Victoria – the beer is crap, the weather’s lousy and the horses run around the track the wrong way!”. She gave her blessing. He hopped into his yellow Kingswood, got on the Princes Highway, stopped at Sale to say hello to his two daughters, gorgeous Julie and delectable Robbie, had two beers in the Gippy with his mates and headed for the New South Wales border. He found beautiful Narooma. It met his requirements – black beer, better weather and an abundance of wonderful people. So, he bought himself an immovable relocatable caravan, sited at the caravan park beside the sea, and he relaxed.
Red loved sport and good food, especially Asian and hot. He supported his favourite teams, Sydney Swans, South Sydney Rabbitoes and the Wallabies, Kangaroos and the Aussie cricket eleven, and any other Aussie that succeeded on the world scene. But above all, he loved horse racing. He knew his horse flesh and if you believe in fate, today in the fourth at Sandown a horse called Red Colossus is running . Its form reads “classy and must be respected”. I’d better hurry – it starts at 3 o’clock!

However, his lovely Dottie was diagnosed with cervical cancer and it was terminal. He sped to her side. She was going to stay in her bed ‘till the last. Red agreed and cared for her. He lovingly bathed her and administered drugs that she so desperately needed to relieve the pain and make her comfortable. Dottie’s bed was upstairs and when he needed assistance, she would ring a bell. At the first tingle, Red was off like a flash up the stairs to help her. Dottie rang that bell 100 times a day and a lovable Red would run up those stairs saying “coming Darling”, then come down the stairs saying “that wench!”. Dottie passed away and once again he got in his Kingswood, got on the Princes Highway, stopped at Sale, ensured that his two daughters were happy, had two beers in the Gippie and headed for Narooma. His redundancy was through from Esso and he looked forward to a life that he was very good at – doing nothing!

On display are Red’s medals, his Navy hat and morse key:
· Returned from Active Service Medal (for being in a war area for more than 30 days)
· Australian Defense Medal (for defending his Nation)
· Australian Service Medal (for serving his Nation)
· The Pingat Jasa (awarded by the Malayan Government for helping out when that Nation was under threat of Communism)
· Navy General Service Medal (in Imperial award issued to sailors during conflicts whilst serving in foreign seas for an extended period of time)
· Polar Medal

What a life! This loveable rogue serviced his Nation well.

For the Postmaster General he rode his bike and clicked his clacker; in the Navy he chopped wood and gave those nasty Commies a bloody nose. In DCA he told aeroplanes to go up and he told aeroplanes to go down; in Antarctica seven times, with his wit and energy he helped small groups of lonely men into happy teams in that far-off hostile environment.

He came home and with a group of wonderful hard-working men, he helped put a hole in the ocean floor to get out that vital commodity that goes towards making this country prosperous.

I would like to conclude with a verse from The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam, Red’s favourite book:

Then said another with a long drawn sigh
My clay with long oblivion has long gone dry
But fill me with the old familiar juice
Me thinks I will improve by and by

Red is home now, eternally and as long as this universe exists. This wonderful, lovable, scheming, witty and sometimes irascible mate will be at rest. In the daytime he will look out on the blue Pacific and at night, up at the Southern Cross. What more could a patriotic Aussie want.

We loved you Red and indeed you loved us all. Goodbye mate and sleep contentedly forever.