John Sutherland Gorey was born at Ballarat in 1926. The circumstances of his birth are so curious as to be worth relating. This is marked by the fact that he was the only one of the children that Eleanor gave a second name to (some might note that Noreen was given a second name, but Sheila was responsible for this).

Eleanor was not aware of how far the pregnancy had advanced and believed that she was having a miscarriage, and even then when John was born, only 12 months after the twins, it was not expected that he would live.

Doctor Salter was called on to christen the infant, and it is surmised that he suggested a second name. If this was the case it is probable that the debilitated mother, in something other than her usual frame of mind, came up with her own maiden name for want of another choice, and so he was known.

Another possible explanation is that the family followed tradition whereby John's Uncle Bill had his mother's maiden name (Evans) for a middle name.

The infant John had no intention of dying however and proceeded to sleep for most of the next month. As he grew he seemed to have had no problem with his appetite either. He was quick to clean up his own, then anything anyone else left on their plate.

This propensity to sit and eat everything in sight earned him the nickname "Tutty" after King Tut, the famous Egyptian pharaoh (then only recently discovered) who was imagined to have sat and enjoyed all the food he wanted.

Another curious point was that John Sutherland was born with a caul, a membrane that grows over the head of some infants. It was a superstition that children so born would never drown and as a result was a highly prestigious attribute among sailors.

Where possible they would buy a preserved one and carry it as a safeguard or good luck charm. This may be regarded as a portent in view of John's later career in the navy.

Before John started school the family left Ballarat, so he commenced his education at Dalmore State School, and was in about grade four when they went to Fumina. His childhood was much like any of the bush children.

Before and after school he had work to do and found his entertainment in the usual ways. He enjoyed sport and reading.

He recalled vividly the terrible events that raged around the blanket in the middle of the paddock on Black Friday. But John is remembered as a terrible tease. Of course in a family that size it was not hard for him to find a target.

He would provoke his siblings and the worse tempered ones, in a family where spectacular tempers were a feature, would react ferociously. For example Noreen was so incensed at one of his taunts that she took to him with a kitchen fork and punched four small holes in him.

An indignant John pulled up his shirt and displayed his wound to everyone. A favorite trick was to spit on any cakes or desserts that he had to leave on the table momentarily, to ensure none of the others would take them. After all, goodies were scarce.

One of John's pastimes was to trap rabbits. One day he was scratching in the ground to set a trap when a trapdoor spider bit him. He raced home where his father applied the time honored methods of washing the bite and treating it with Condy's crystals, before ordering his son to bed.

John was terrified and thought he was going to die. His brother, Archie, had watched proceedings with interest and could not pass up such a golden opportunity to take a rise out of his smart alec younger brother. Archie set up a clock near the bed and told John in all seriousness that if he made it to eight o'clock he would live.

The wide eyed lad did not move, nor take his eyes off the hands until the appointed hour, when in great relief he got up out of bed and on with his life.

Another story, when John was much younger, involved the twins. There was only a year between them and they were thick as thieves. But there were limits. The three of them were playing up to the extent that Eleanor got a bit sick of it, and warned them to the effect that if they did not behave then someone would come and get them and take them away, and put them in jail or something.

That settled them down for a while but the blue started again and the bogey man was trotted out again. Now at the time the house was being renovated and as luck would have it right then the man who was engaged to lay the new linoleum arrived.

This was too much for the youngsters and in their terror ran into one of the rooms and hid under the bed. One can only wonder what the lino layer thought as he crawled on hands and knees around the room, just doing his job, with three young brats under the bed, their eyes nearly popping out of their petrified white faces.

However it is not hard to imagine the reactions of the children, to the bogey man crawling around the room searching for three naughty children. Eventually it got too much for them, so in desperation, casting sibling love aside, John and Margaret pushed Dan out from under the bed as a sacrifice in the hope that he would leave them alone.

Yet John was always very protective of his brother Dan, and very fond of him. On one occasion at school the teacher, Basil Dodd, gave Dan a serve because he was a bit slow to master some mathematical problem. John raced over and raised his fists in anger at the teacher, warning him to leave his brother alone. Dodd was surprised but held his nerve and, treating it as a bit of a joke told John to go back to his seat and sit down.

John calmed down and sullenly resumed his seat, but the teacher left Dan alone after that. The Gorey children might fight and argue but they would look after each other.

One day he talked Dan, Nell and Noreen into wagging school. Off they all went down Ballantyne's road to the Icy Creek and had a lovely picnic. The next day Basil Dodd gave the two boys a couple of strokes, while the girls had to suffer their father's silent wrath. Michael would have had no doubt about whose idea it was.

John appears to have been uncommonly bright, even in a very intelligent family, and the local school inspector recommended to his parents that he be given the chance to further his education beyond the eighth grade available to most country children.

Michael and Eleanor took this advice and arranged for their son to stay with relatives in the city. Ellie's brother, Archie Sutherland, agreed to take his nephew in, so John headed off to North Fitzroy to stay with uncle Arch and Aunt Francy, so that he could attend the Collingwood Technical School, with the ultimate aim of securing an apprenticeship.

This involved a lot of trouble and expense, but was the only real alternative available to them. The venture lasted only a few months however. It is not hard to imagine the affect the move would have had on the young country lad sent to the big smoke, and the influence of the city lads who had grown up on the streets of Collingwood and Fitzroy. He fell in with bad company.

John gave little account of it but they used to wag school, and would go down to the docks or wander through the city to fill in their time, not always with benevolent intent.

In about 1940 just before the family moved to Icy Creek, John and some mates were caught pilfering, and hauled up before the Children's Court. The family was devastated. Michael had to take him in to the court and Noreen remembers her mother waving her finger at him and demanding that he go in there and tell the truth.

Given a bond he had to return home in disgrace. This was to have an impact on the futures of the younger children as Michael and Eleanor never repeated the exercise, despite their similar capabilities.

On returning home he worked for his father on the new property at Icy Creek, picking up spuds and the like. At this time the Icy Creek farm was not cleared, so Michael took up a lease on some land at Vesper belonging to Charlie Adams, so that they would have an income.

This property had an old house, and Michael, Dan, John and Archie would stay there during the week and work it, returning home for the weekend.

They would walk the full five miles. John got sick of working for nothing so headed off up the road to the rebuilt mills at Tanjil Bren to find work in the timber industry. He started at Dyer's mill. He related the story with great jocularity about his melodious awakening each morning to the sounds of the gentleman whose job it was to care for the horses, who would gently request his horses to lift their feet a little bit higher and move that little bit faster to help him get the yokes and gear on ready for the day's hauling.

There was no formal apprenticeship in the mills for most men, but John's ability was quickly recognised as exceptional and he just as quickly picked up many of the skills. It is easy for people today to regard the mill and bush workers as uneducated yokels who relied only on their hands and their muscles, but such a belief would betray considerable ignorance in the holder.

These men had to be resourceful and able to improvise. They had to be able to take nothing and make what they needed out of it, and to remain in regular work they needed to possess a wide range of skills. The principle of "one man one job" was a foreign one in the tall timber. If there was no work for a faller a man might have to do the job of ropey, or if there was no work on the bench a man might have to stack. If someone was away another would have to fill in.

In this environment John made the most of the on-the-job training offered, and, at Cook's mill, not yet out of his teens, rose to the position of head benchman, probably the most prestigious and best paid job in many mills, although it was strenuous and dangerous.

The slabs of timber would come down off the breaking-down saw to the head benchman, whose work involved setting up and feeding these slabs so they were cut to the appropriate sizes.

A family friend later admitted that he went to Cook's mill to get the number one bench job, thinking a teenager would not be too much competition. He soon became aware of why the man many years his junior would be pretty hard to shift.

After the war John left the mills and joined the navy, shortly after his 18th birthday. In view of his previous experience away from home this decision is a little puzzling, especially when he was pretty well set up and earning good money where he was.

His truant visits to the docks and the sight of the big ships may have planted the seed, and he may have realised that he had the ability to do other things with his life.

A further catalyst may have been when he met his sister Mary's husband, Lindsay Burns, who worked at Tanjil Bren. Lindsay had served in the navy during the war and this may have impressed John, but he may have made up his mind already, and Lindsay's stories may just have confirmed his decision.

There is another possibility, one that ran in the family. John may have had the wanderlust. His grandfather had it, his father travelled widely before settling down, and his uncle Charles (who John would never have met) was a wandering loner.

His naval career is no surprise in view of his previous experiences. We know nothing of his basic training, but his abilities would have shown through, and he eventually became a radar operator and rose to the rank of petty officer. But the life did not always suit.

He went AWOL for six months at one stage, and worked as a bricky's laborer in Canberra. The military police eventually picked him up and threw him into the brig. A demotion and loss of pay followed.

He felt they had known where he was, but left him alone for a while to let off a little steam. It is a puzzle that he later signed up again for a further six years. Irrespective of his misdemeanor, his service must have been a great experience for him. He served on a RAN destroyer that saw active service in the Korean War, pounding the Korean coast and coming under fire entering a river mouth. As John put it he "got shot at."

He took part in the Queen's Coronation March and visited the United States, spending leave travelling across the country by train, getting lost and ending up somewhere else.

Keen on his sport he later stated that he had played cricket in every test playing country, and even played a match in Hong Kong. Even so he was to say later that he could not get out of the navy quickly enough.

Leaving the navy he found work in a plastics factory making vinyl goods. It may have been while working here that he met Jean. They had a big wedding and settled into a flat in Loller Street, Brighton. Neither seems to have wanted children.

He developed asthma from the chemicals he worked with, so he then became a security guard at PMG, working in Lonsdale Street for a long time. His family saw very little of him.

He had grown apart from them and was later to admit that he was not really family oriented; that it was not important to him.

This may have resulted from the many years he spent away in the navy, but it could be that the fact of being sent away at a young age had a deeper affect than we realise.

He could be quite open about his attitude. John once told his nephew that he had spent such long periods away from his family that he did not feel they were really part of his life. He certainly had a peculiar side though.

One day his sister Nell was walking down Swanston Street and spotted John, on leave. John ducked off, keen to avoid his sister. Nell was stunned, but went after him and gave him a bit of a dressing down.

At one stage John had a girl friend, Del, who had come down to Melbourne to see him. He left her stranded. The whim overcame him to jump on a merchant ship and go on a three-week cruise along the coast. Del was from Sydney and knew no-one in Melbourne. The only thing she could do was seek out Nell, whose phone number she had.

John could be very casual and was notoriously unreliable. One day Eleanor received a letter from a woman named Mavis, and chuckled heartily as she read a glowing tribute to her son.

What a wonderful man John was and it was a credit to his mother that she had raised such a kind, caring, thoughtful, reliable and dependable blah, blah, blah. Mavis' intentions were very clear, as was the rude awakening she was about to experience if she thought that was the true John Gorey.

For all his faults he could be a very kind and generous soul. He was popular with his nephews and nieces who, as young children, felt relaxed with him and enjoyed his sense of fun. The morose side of his personality was balanced by great wit and a broad sense of humor, and he could be thoroughly entertaining company when the mood overtook him.

In fact he could be downright charming, especially with the ladies, and he was not too fussed if they were married. His sister Mary recalls that she found his blatant flirting with married women very embarrassing. He could tell a story and yet laugh at his own expense. He was a very complex personality, and in many ways reflected his own father. It is a shame his family did not see more of the gregarious side of him.

John's marriage failed. Jean was bright and active, and loved going out, while John preferred to stay home and drink. He was very ashamed of the divorce and further cut himself off from his family.

Rare contacts became non-existent, and when his mother died his brothers and sisters tried to contact him but without success. He did not attend Eleanor's funeral, even though he knew about it. It is no wonder that the family regarded him as a little strange. John was to express regret at his actions, but admitted he was too ashamed to face them and did not feel truly part of the family. When the police came to the flat to tell him of his mother's passing he was there, but he would not answer the door.

But contacts occasionally occurred, and at John's instigation, although the circumstances were typically bizarre. While he was working as a security guard at the Telecom offices he became friendly with another worker named Max Carlile. Most coincidentally, and unbeknown to John, Max was a long time friend of Dennis Burns, John's nephew. Max had a wicked sense of humor and would pull some fact of John's life out of the blue.

For example, Max would stare at him and when John asked what was wrong he would say that there were twins in John's family.
Every time Max saw Dennis he would carry away some family detail to tantalise his workmate. John had no idea and it would have driven one of such intelligence mad, not having any rational explanation for his friend's uncanny ability. After some months Dennis went in to see his uncle and they told him to put him out of his misery.

John was quite pleased to see him, but along the way Dennis gave him a bit of a serve for not having contact with his family. John took this to heart, but it was still hard for him and he needed a bit of help.

He would get very drunk one night and ring someone up, a brother, a sister, a nephew or a niece, or maybe several of them. He would ramble on for ages and tell them how much he loved them and whatever, and it seems the next morning he would have no idea what he had done, except for the notepad of telephone numbers, and the phone bill with a huge bill for trunk calls.

The Lord only knows what prompted him but one night he rang his sister "Pepper". The phone lines would have crackled with the loathing and disgust that Margaret was an expert at expressing as she berated her drunken brother for his behavior. The result was so upsetting to him that he rang his brother Peter, crying down the phone in distress, unable to comprehend how she could speak to her brother like that, what had he ever done to her to deserve to have those things said about him and so on.

Deep down he did have feelings for his kin. The complexity of his nature prevented him from showing it, nor even acknowledging it to himself.

As a result the circumstances of the twilight of his life should come as no surprise. The story goes like this. One day Jim Gorey received a phone call from a girl in Sydney. The caller established that Jim was the same Jim Gorey who was John Gorey's brother, then asked him if he could remember Del, John's one-time girlfriend.

Jim said yes, he could, then the caller asked if John was still around. Again Jim said yes, but before he could ask what this was all about, the caller said she would explain what she wanted, but needed to ask one more question, that is, was John married. When Jim explained that he was divorced the story unfolded.

The caller was Del's daughter. John and Del had discussed marriage during their relationship, but while John was in Korea she met someone else and he quite literally got a "Dear John" letter.

Her marriage had folded and one day, during an especially morose mood, her daughters had tried to cheer her up.

During the conversation Del told her daughters about John and the visits to Icy Creek and Melbourne. These memories clearly made her feel better so the girls decided to try to find John and see if making contact with him might give their mother a badly needed morale boost.

Jim rang John and told him about it, and the next thing the family knew was that John had gone to Sydney, and was promptly married again. He and Del lived in her mobile home at Terrigal, just north of Gosford, enjoying their retirement. It seems that John was happy, although the phone calls would occur from time to time, a sure sign that Del was away.

Sadly John developed cancer and died, as far from his family as ever, in 1998.