Robyn Jane Cockroft

Robyn’s Eulogy Robyn Jane McCarthy was born on 31st March 1952 in Camperdown, King George Woman’s Hospital to Robert and Doris McCarthy. She was the second of five children and sister to Christina, Sharon, Robert and Julie. Robyn lived in Newtown until she was 6 years old and attended Enmore primary school. The family moved then to Mt Druit for a little while, then Marrickville and Lurnea. Mum attended Lurnea High school and left school at 14 to get a job to help support the family. A fond memory of mums childhood was Aunty Chrissy and mum fighting all the time, Aunty Chrissy thought to solve the problem it would be a good idea to draw a line down the middle of the room they shared. The only problem for mum was that the door was on Aunty Chrissy’s side of the room. Mum questioned how she was going to get out of the room? Aunty Chrissy told her “out the window”. When mum left school she worked at Nile in Campbelltown for a number of years, during this time she would go on bus trips with work to the snow fields. On one of the trips she was coming down a slope on a toboggan and couldn’t stop. She ended up going under a bus and got stuck. She loved to tell us all this story. Mum would also spend some Saturday nights at Luna Park going on the rides and spending time with her friends. When mum was 20 years old she was asked by a friend to go on a blind date with Dad, they met up and began courting. Robyn waited for Tom as he was conscripted into the army, upon his return they got engaged and were married soon after on 3rd November 1973. They began married life living in Warwick Farm then moved to Mt Isa while mum was pregnant but returned to Campbelltown for their first born child to be born. Daniel was born in December 1974, mum and dad lived in Narellan for a little while then in a caravan with Daniel for a few years before they bought their first family home in Rudd Road Campbelltown in 1979. Their second child Alan was born in July 1979, Donna in March 1981 and Hayden in September 1982. When mum was 6 months pregnant with Hayden she developed what they found after three days was a bowl blockage which threatened both mums and Hayden’s lives. The doctor fixed the blockage then she went into early labour which the Dr’s managed to suppress and Hayden was born after a 2-hour labour. 3 months later Mum and dad were warned after his birth that if they were going to have more children they should camp near the hospital when the next one was due as they might have trouble getting to the hospital in time for the birth. Dad found out what was causing the pregnancy problem so no more children were forthcoming. Mum was hospitalised again 6 months after Hayden’s birth to have a kidney stone removed which they found while doing tests 9 months earlier. Robyn, Tom and family moved to Blackwater in 1983 because dad chased another job where Robyn began her much loved hobby of painting Ceramics, she loved to sit at the kitchen table with her project and paint ornaments for both our house and presents for others. Mum also began playing Ten pin bowling on a Thursday morning and entered many tournaments. Robyn and Tom made lifelong friends while in Blackwater in Annette and Peter where we spent many family BBQs and camping holidays. We spent many school holidays travelling 16 -24 hours in the car from Blackwater to Sydney to visit family, mum hated the trip. On one of the trips we had Donna thought it was a good idea to stick a sultana up Hayden’s nose, when he couldn’t get it out mum became furious with her and did the usual back of the seat slap that mums do! but she missed her. She did catch up with Donna later though while she was sleeping and smacked her then. While in Blackwater mum had trouble with her foot and had an operation to correct it. I remember while she was recovering she was on crutches and went to have a shower, getting in the shower she slipped and ended up on the floor of the shower with the shower curtain over her. She yelled out to us kids help, help but being the children we were all we could do was laugh. In 1990 we returned from Blackwater when mum and dad built their dream home. Mum worked for a couple of years at Woolworths as a checkout chick then was a stay and home mum continuing to raise all of us. A few years passed and mum began working in a retail shop selling Terracotta ornaments and furniture. After a short time working their mum decided to start up her own business doing terracotta in our garage at home. Mum did this for a little while before changing over to doing Ceramics. Mum sold products, made presents and taught people how to paint through classes. Mum gave up this business in 2002 when mum and dad began travelling around parts of Australia. Daniel came home for dinner most nights, he remembers being a little intoxicated. He came in with the munchies and wanting to cook a feed up. Mums has gone off saying “no I’ve cooked dinner you are not cooking anything else”. He started giving mum a bit of lip and said “I’ve got the fry pan out ready to cook. He waved the fry pan around and mum said you keep going I’ll hit you with this fry pan. He is going ‘yeah, yeah sure you will’ and kept giving mum cheek. He put the fry pan up to his face then all of a sudden mum hit the fry pan with her fist and knocked the frypan into his face. It shocked him and they looked at each other and burst out laughing. Donna came in just as he was pulling the fry pan off his face and she started laughing. In 1996 mum welcomed Lisa and Louise into the family and in 1997 she welcomed her first grandchild Dalton in February and since followed another 9 grandchildren who she adored. She loved watching them grow and being part of all their accomplishments. In 2003 mum and dad bought their first travelling caravan making their way down the great ocean road, up to Cairns, my front yard, Gold Coast, my front yard and various other places. They bought a new caravan about 6 years ago and travelled the Birdsville Track through the middle of Australia, Savannah Way in the Northern Territory, then toured around Western Australia. In 2006 mum witnessed my wedding, she enjoyed every minute as she got to see all her sons and husband in a suit, and loved being surrounded by all her family and friends. In 2007 mum had surgery on her legs to correct the blood flow what was supposed to be day surgery turned into a month in hospital, after all the medical problems at this time mum and dad decided to retire. For mum and dads 60th Birthdays mum dragged dad on a holiday cruising around Vanuatu where they had a great time. They enjoyed ice coffee’s in the lounge, site seeing the islands and seeing first- hand the culture. Mum loved every minute. While mum and dad were living in Queensland they would spend a lot of time travelling back and forward to spend time with their grandchildren. We would go for Christmas holidays to their place and go to the theme parks with mum and do shopping trips. In the last 12 year’s mum and dad travelled a lot and moved from Narellan to Flinders, Flinders to Port Macquarie, Port Macquarie to Bannockburn Queensland then from Bannockburn to my front yard in the caravan. After a year mum and dad finally settled on a house in Falls Creek where mum got the kitchen she always wanted. In May 2014 mum and Aunty Chrissy got to experience a trip of a life time. They went touring around Canada, going on the rocky mountaineer, doing a cruise where they saw glaciers. They travelled around America seeing Niagara Falls, Los Angeles and Disney Land. Mum adored every minute of Canada even though she had the flu and vertigo. She enjoyed Niagara Falls and I remember her telling us that they got completely soaked when on the boat. She thought Disney Land was a great place to go and always said she would love to take the grandchildren there one day. In 2015 mum was diagnosed with Oesophageal cancer and underwent Chemo and Radiation. In May she underwent surgery to remove the tumour and after an 8 week stay in hospital she was recovering at home when Uncle Bob and Aunty Robin came down to spend some time with her and teach her how to paint on canvas. During this time mum discovered her passion for painting again and was looking forward to painting flowers. As most of you know the rest of mum’s year became worse and resulted in her passing in dad’s arms with us there by her side.