My older son is home from university for a day, to get his car serviced and have his twenty one year portrait photograph taken. He is twenty two but is getting around to it after a year of reminding from his mother. Meanwhile, in the last few months, he has lost about fifty kilograms.
We talked about our family history. My son is named for his great grandfather, my father's father, a famous sportsman and successful businessman of his day. He was a lovely man, though I suppose a hard act to follow, with a kindly rounded face and protruding tufts of white hair from his ears which made him look like a cuddly koala. By contrast my grandmother was thin and acerbic. They grew up and met in a goldfields town where his family had a house-moving business and her father was a country policeman who later became Superintendent of Police for the state. He was cheerful and robust while she was demurely pretty. He became the heart and soul of a great sporting club as player, captain, president and patron for over seventy years and was a founding member of our state automobile club. She and her friends founded a society for the benefit of children with cerebral palsy of which she was treasurer for decades. It has developed into one of the largest not-for-profit service organisations in the country, now funded by both government and charity.
They were people with leadership qualities : people who could see a need and work constructively with a group for a common goal without financial reward, over many years. They weren't alone either : their friends worked with them too. I work long hours for the health of our community but I feel myopic compared to the vision of my ancestors.
I look at my son, so handsome now, and wonder, when they look at his portrait, what his descendants will think of these ancient forebears.
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