In Memory of Don Holdaway
-From Brian Cambourne-
Dear Colleagues,
I attended Don's funeral ceremony last Friday, October 1. It was
held in the Chapel of Leura Crematorium from 10.30 till about
1.00pm. It was a day on which the drought we've been experiencing
for the last two years started to break, and it rained heavily
across Sydney's catchment area and beyond. It was a long difficult
drive in blinding rain, on slippery roads, but as we are wont to
say in Oz, "I wouldn't have missed it for quids" (i.e. lots of
dollars).
It wasn't a big gathering. Mostly family, with a few professional
colleagues. Those of you who knew Don well will recall that he
dedicated his "Foundations of Literacy" to Bacchus and Eros, which
was one of Don's subtle reflections on what he valued in life,
love of women and convivial relationships with everyone.
These two themes were predominant through out the service. As
Frances Holdaway said to me when the service began, "Don would be
pleased; three of his four wives and his ten children are all
here." It wasn't till the service was almost over that I realised
why she thought this way.
Don's elder brother, Barry (whom no one could mistake for Don's
brother), recounted Don's and his early days in NZ. Don's parents
owned a dairy farm which kept them dirt poor. Their house was a
makeshift dwelling with no plumbing, water or electricity. Don was
the second youngest of 5 kids. A younger sister was born a few
years after Don, but died when Don was five. Barry told of how
they would read by candle light, be bathed once a week using hot
water from the family copper. Don excelled at sport ("he was
exceptionally strong") especially athletics and rowing. He found
school easy and excelled scholastically. Their mother died when
Don was 10, and their dad remarried a woman whom they eventually
came to love and respect, and who taught them things like how to
use a serviette and some of the other niceties of etiquette. Don
spent a couple of years in the NZ navy, enrolled in a university
degree which he passed easily and became a teacher.
Then each of his children (and some of his grandchildren) each
delivered their own personal eulogies. Although each told
different stories there was something undeniably "Holdaway-ish"
about each of them. It's hard to identify just what this was. The
stories they told were emotional but not maudlin, each obviously
had inherited some of Don's linguistic and creative genius, each
obviously loved their father deeply, in a way that goes beyond
typical familial and/or filial love; they also seem to share their
dad's ways of viewing the world, his love for literature, poetry,
and had embraced his philosophy of life, love, and conviviality.
Towards the end of the service others were invited to tell their
own stories of Don and their experiences with him. Each had the
same core message: Not only was Don a brilliant teacher, he was a
true renaissance man. He read an understood philosophy, could
memorise poems and prose and recite them to illustrate important
life issues. He was a creative wood worker, builder, gardener, and
publisher. He was an extremely gifted writer, whose legacy will
live on long after he's gone. He could have easily been a
brilliant academic, because intellectually he was so far ahead of
most of them. And so it went. The same message from so many
different people whom Don had touched in some way.
As I drove home for some reason, William Johnson Cory's poem
"Heraclitus" kept running through my mind:
"They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take."
