Michael Brown 2009

Michael and I became close friends in our final year (1965) at ABHS, when we used to wag the religious instruction classes (whatever they were called) and head off somewhere in his little Morris Minor.Michael was one of those guys who could put his hand to anything, especially if it included cars, construction and fabrication. We were often to be found in a big shed down the back of his parents Livingstone Avenue property in Pymble, modifying cars into beach buggies, pulling motors down and rebuilding them or welding up various inventions that used to pour forth from Michael’s imagination at a prodigious rate. A very creative guy.

After finishing school, Michael joined his father who was a master builder with an office in Lindfield, working as a draftsman, as well as studying at Tech. While there, he found time to design a little hunting cabin which we built at Tarana, west of Lithgow, and at which we spent many weekends, shooting rabbits and the occasional roo.

His family owned a block of land at Stuarts Point on the NSW coast north of Kempsey, and Michael designed a large holiday house which I helped his family build over a number of holiday periods. The beach buggies that became reality in the backyard at Pymble, were driven up to Stuarts Point where they provided any amount of entertainment for myself, Michael and his brothers. On one occasion I was getting ‘a bit of air’ under the buggy and Michael landed heavily on the seat beside me and fractured one of his vertebrae. It was while he was recuperating in hospital that he met his wife-to-be Jane, with whom he has a son Jamie.

The trips up to Stuarts Point were usually in Michael’s Holden Monaro 327 GTS, so done in comfort and at speed. Michael was prone to getting drowsy at the wheel, and usually only lasted an hour or so, and invariably I would then take over at Hexham and drive the rest of the way. Lots of great memories piloting that yellow streak up the Pacific Highway, everyone smoking, radio cranked up, speedo hovering around the 80mph mark! It was also the main towing vehicle in the family, and on one occasion when he was launching a boat into the Lane Cove River, the handbrake cable snapped when he had just stepped out of the car. The open door knocked Michael to the ground and the boat, trailer and car rolled down the ramp and into the river, with the car completely submerged. As this was below the weir, it was salt water, but Michael, unperturbed, took the next week off work and stripped the whole car down; seats, electrics, motor, gearbox….everything. His younger brother Ashley still drives the Monaro around….fully functional and no sign of rust!!

In later life, Michael, long divorced, lived and worked in Mudgee, and owned a large tract of land nearby. He built up a hydraulics workshop and business while also developing the property, where he moved to once he had built the accommodation. Never having been the type to seek the social limelight, Michael seems to have become something of a hermit in his later years. A smoker since his teenage years, Michael developed emphysema which eventually led to his death on September 3, 2009. Michael confided his illness with me as we left the 40^th reunion in 2004, in the back seat of John Hartigan’s chauffeur driven car.

When I knew that Michael’s condition had deteriorated, I made plans to travel to Sydney to spend some final time with him. Shortly before I was to fly up, I received a phone call from his sister Deborah, informing me of his passing. Two days later I attended a quiet family wake at his brother’s house in Westleigh. Michael’s birthday was the day after mine, so the memory trigger is always there for me.

You were a good bloke, Michael. RIP.

Greg Baxter.