Ron Scott’s Eulogy
By: (Sep 19 2022)as read by his Nephew at the Thanksgiving celebration for the life of Ron Scott
Today we are all here to farewell and celebrate the life of our good friend and relative, John Ronald Scott or better known as Uncle Ron.
Ron was born in Sydney on the 20th of April, in the same year that World War 1 ended, 1918.
Born 1 of 4 boys he grew up during the great depression, where Ron and his family couldn’t afford to buy things like shoes and other things we all now take for granted. He started working from the age of 12 as a paperboy and looked for all sorts of ways to make money to help to support his Mother, which he did for many years. In his own time he taught Sunday school with kindergarten children for the Baptist Church. In 1937 he started working as a dock foreman for an insulation company named Sizalkraft who later changed name to become ACI St Reges, where he stayed on for many years. Ron retired from work at the age of 65 years.
Throughout Ron’s life he experienced many changes and events throughout Australian History.
He was 11 years old when in 1929 the Great Depression hit Australia and one third of Australian workers are out of work. In 1939 at the age of 21, he saw the start of World War II and its finish in 1945. When he was 45 years old, Aboriginals were given full rights as Australian citizens in 1963.
These events contributed to Ron’s fascination with history, which led him to travel to places such as America, India, Europe, Hawaii, and England.
It’s probably safe to say the most significant thing that happened in Ron’s life was the day he met his partner of 53 years, Jim Swain. They met in Sydney, in the now non-existent Carlton Hotel. Jim nicknamed Ron, Charles Augustus, or Charlie Brown, and throughout the many years they spent together, many people experienced their friendliness and generosity which is a reflection of the good hearted people they really were.
Ron and Jim lived happily together for the rest of their natural lives. In the early days when pubs would closed at 6.00pm, they would throw parties at their house, where there were plenty of drinking and dancing, in fact there was so much dancing, they shook the floorboards of the house loose. A story that came from one party that Ron and Jim went to was when Ron drove home from party, because Jim was too drunk to drive, and Ron steered the car whilst Jim, in his drunken state, operated the pedals from the passenger seat. All this because Ron had never had a drivers license or for that matter knew how to drive a car.
Ron had several hobbies he took part in, such as selling the jewellery that Jim made all over Sydney, playing the poker machines and sports of all kinds.
The tragic loss of his partner Jim had a great effect on Ron’s life, and now as we say farewell to him, we all come away from today by knowing that Ron and Jim are now happily together once again.