A Celebration of a Wonderful Life
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My mother, Gwen Crichton, was a remarkable person. I am honoured to be
standing before you today qto pay tribute to her, and to relate some
of the many qualities she had that made her the strong, independent
and unique individual that she was.

Clearly, she touched many lives, not least those of you who are here
today who, I know, hold her in enormous respect and deep love. It is
gratifying to know that there are so many of us here today who feel
that strong sense of kinship with her.

I said that Mum was a remarkable person. She was of an era and
maintained always a set of old fashioned values, where, even in
business, your word was what was important. Your relations with people
were paramount.

Mum was a pioneer in her field, she was a woman way ahead of her
time. I want you to picture the scene back before the second world war
when for a woman to enter business, on her own, was almost
unthinkable. Enter a very young woman, a strong character who knew her
own mind, who was determined to embark on a career of her own. Enter
Gwen Gilchrist, a pint-sized power house of determination. Banks and
some businesses refused to deal with her because she was a woman. Some
banks wanted to grant her a loan, only if her brother, Jim, seven
years her junior, would act as guarantor. Gwen would have none of
that. She would deal with the banks on her terms. She wanted to do it
on her own. And so she did. In 1938, prior to the outbreak of World
War II, Gwen Gilchrist opened her business in rented premises at 208
Maroubra Road, Maroubra. She opened the business under her maiden name
Gilchrist. "Gilchrists" was to become a household name for several
generations, serving the broader community for the next 62 years. I
think to have survived these early, difficult years and to have
continued to flourish for such a lengthy period of time stands as
testimony to her remarkable life.

Back in 1938, just starting out in business, Gwen would stay up late
at night, helped by her friends Puss and Nell Klima, making hats and
knitting garments to add to her stock for sale. Also starting out in
business at this time was a tall, good looking younger man who was
commencing his career as a watchmaker and jeweller. Gwen, to make ends
meet, sublet one of the windows of her rented premises to this young
man. Enter my father, Ric Crichton.

When both the rented premises at 208 and the next door premises at 206
Maroubra Road went up for sale, she and Ric each purchased a shop -
right next door to each other. And then as my mother always put it,
this young man just kept coming in to fix the lightbulb or whatever.

They were married a few years later - a romance hindered by the
outbreak of war and my father's many departures with the Air Force
interstate and overseas to Papua New Guinea.

My mum and dad had a wonderful, strong supportive relationship until
his death in 1972. This was a relationship where, remarkably for their
time, my mother was able to maintain her business persona, her
independence and have a loving, supportive and stable family life.

During her many years in business she was supported by her wonderful
staff, many of whom are here today. Nearly all of these were women,
many of them part-time with families of their own. And their families
became inextricably linked with our own. In all of this time, my
mother had only two managers to help run the business which at one
point had expanded to three premises and which was a household name in
the community.  I grew up, sitting on buses going to and from school
"if you can't get it at Gilchrists, then you can't get it
anywhere". But back to her managers - firstly Miss MacKinnon whom Greg
and I grew up calling "Mackie" and who worked for my mum for 28 years
until Mackie's retirement. Mackie was a hard act to follow, but Mum
found a wonderful replacement in the first man to enter her employment
(excluding my dad, Greg, Dean of course, and various family members as
we were all there at some stage!)  but her next manager was the
wonderful Mr Brown (everyone was known by their full title in my mum's
business) who became her manager for the next 22 years until his
retirement. My mother was still not ready to retire.

Her retirement finally came on the 30th of June 2000, prompted, in
part, by the introduction of the GST. In Gilchrists, everything was
handwritten, all receipts were handwritten, the cash register that Mum
had purchased somewhere in the early 1940s still registered your sale
in pounds, shillings and pence. There was always a chair downstairs
for the elderly or frail to sit on. All the books were done by
hand. And business was conducted on good will.

And so it was that as the 30th of June 2000 approached, the media
recognised that a pioneer in the field was leaving, that it was the
end of an era. The Sydney Morning Herald published her story on page 2
in May, and the network media followed - in June 2000 my mother was
the celebrity of the month - with segments on "A Current Affair",
Channels 7, 9 and 10. The State Archives in the Mitchell Library
contacted her and she and her shop are now part of our State's records
to be accessed by future generations. My mum was particularly pleased
with being recognised by the Mitchell library as she felt her
grandchildren could remember her through this.

Gwen's achievements are obvious - they are even more remarkable when
one recognises the physical adversities that seemed to plague her all
her life.

Long before Greg was born, Mum had been involved in at least two very
serious car accidents. It is the stuff of family folklore where in one
of them she was trapped inside the car, upside down and, in an age
where seatbelts weren't worn and the cars were heavy solid machines,
my mum told us of how, clearly with the adrenalin pumping, my dad
turned the car upright. In another of these accidents, the side of the
car was peeled back and my mum's leg collected one of the small white
fence posts on the side of the road. As she lay in hospital, badly
damaged, the doctors warned her they may have to amputate one of her
legs. They told her that she would never walk again and would be
confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She also had a
broken back.

Well this wasn't going to hold Gwen back. Not only did she walk again,
she took up golf and continued playing that until the 1990s. Some of
you may also know that Gwen had been an A-grade tennis player in her
youth and came from a family of tennis players - both her brother Jim
and niece Wendy became professional players. Later, her courage was to
be tested again. Her old injuries were never going to go away, they
only got worse with increasing age. Her knees were basically giving up
their function, so in 1993, against the doctor's advice, she convinced
one doctor to replace both her knees at the same time. As she said "if
you do just one you'll never get me back in here again". She had them
both done and then she had to learn to walk again - firstly on a
frame, then a stick and finally without one. She only used the stick
if she had to negotiate steps of any kind.

It was just prior to the knee operation that Russell and I moved back
into Gordon Avenue after returning from a year overseas. It was only
meant to be a temporary measure. We bought a house together on the
north side. We never moved in there.

After her knee replacements, my mum underwent extensive rehabilitation
at the War Memorial hospital. So keen was she there to get back on her
feet - literally - that they had to tell her not to overdo the
physiotherapy and the exercises. In fact, when she checked herself out
(yes, she was always pushing the limits) they asked her if she could
stay on longer as she was such an inspiration to the other
patients. Mum felt out of place in there - surrounded by these "poor
old souls" as she put it - many of them a decade or so younger than
her. She was keen to come home and get back to work - back to life.

And, I should mention that Mum had had her first heart attack by
then. We learnt that she had a torn mitral valve so that her heart was
always working harder than it should.

They could never operate on her to do open heart surgery because of
her back - she simply would not have been able to handle it, but in
1997, a new technology - key hole surgery through the ribcage - seemed
to be available. There had only been 6 operations done this way at the
time, my mum signed herself up to be the 7th. The surgery never took
place, however. The day before she was due to go into hospital, she
contracted pneumonia so the operation never took place. Her heart
condition was managed thereafter by medication, but clearly she was
never in good health.

Discharged from hospital ten days after contracting the pneumonia, my
mum, being her typical independent self, and despite the fact that
either Russell or myself were taking shifts to be at home with her,
she got up, her legs gave way underneath, and the fall broke her
hip. So she was back in hospital having a pin and plate put into her
hip joint. She had to learn to walk again. I remember a comment from
Dean made as he watched her manoeuvring a frame yet again: as he said
"she's courage walking on two legs!" I think we were all in awe of
her.

My mum was enormously proud of her family - of Greg and I, and of her
three grandchildren. She managed, somehow, despite her business life,
to put family at the forefront. And she made many people here today a
part of her extended family. And that was true, especially of her
other sons as she used to call them: Rhett, Greg Franklin, Craig and
Humphrey. Equally, Pam and Vicki were also very special people in her
life. More recently, I know that she added my very good friend Judy as
an honourary niece. She was exceptionally happy to take on Russell and
Maggie as her respective son and daughter -in-law. I know she held
them both in very high regard. I know the feeling was mutual.

I cannot fail to mention Mum's very close friend, Gill. As intrepid
travellers, they have travelled the world together, been friends for
the past forty years and always enjoyed a scotch, sherry or
brandy-and-dry together most evenings. Both she and Gill enjoyed the
company of fellow golfers and friends, the Round Table Girls, lunching
together on a monthly basis for many years.

One of my mother's greatest delights were her grandchildren, of whom
she was also enormously proud. She would often remark how lucky she
was to have had three such wonderful individuals as Blair, Chaanah and
Hal. She revelled in them - in their accomplishments and in the
wonderful people they have become. She revelled in Blair's academic
achievements and in Chaanah's drama success. She also got great
delight in Chaanah excelling in maths. At last one of them she felt
was taking after what she had been good at. And she revelled in their
sporting successes. She received enormous happiness especially from
having Hal living at home with her, from the moment of his birth. She
delighted in watching him grow, in seeing his daily accomplishments,
in his ballet routines, in his regular little performances and in
seeing him dressed in his school uniform (some of which came from
Gilchrists!) on his first day at "big school" this year. In the last
year or so, when with her increasing loss of hearing and loss of
sight, life had became so frustrating for her, I know that when Hal
entered her room, her eyes simply lit up.

My mother passed on some of her wonderful qualities, even her
mannerisms and her attributes to Greg and I and to Blair, Chaanah and
Hal. Certainly there is a strength and a determination of character
that runs through each of us and which I am sure we owe in no small
part to her.

And so, I will close and salute my mum - much loved, a wonderful human
being, and an inspiration to us all!