Last Sunday I travelled to Perth for the Monday funeral of Glynn Watkins. I stayed overnight at my niece’s house and FINALLY met her lovely boyfriend, Michael. My niece is vegetarian and a mean cook, so she did some interesting things with ingredients I normally wouldn’t even buy. It was lovely to spend time with her—I only saw her briefly at the funeral.
As expected, Glynn’s funeral was HUGE. There were well over 200 squeezed into the church alone, and they relayed a CCTV broadcast of it into the church hall, which the Minister said was also packed. I figured somewhere between 300 and 500 people attended. The service (eucharist?) was very long and quite religious. Only two eulogies were given—one by one of Glynn’s ex-Deputy Principals, and one by his daughter Gina. Both were very funny and very sad. Gina did an amazing job of holding it together and gave a wonderful snapshot of her beloved father. After the service, the congregation was asked to follow Glynn’s coffin as it was taken to the hearse. And then a surprising and deeply moving thing happened—the current group of WA police recruits, whom Glynn had been mentoring, formed a guard of honour, lining both sides of the street and saluting as the hearse slowly moved off, with family and close friends walking behind.
A fitting tribute to a great man.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 