G'Day from Oz DownUnder

A tribute to Platoon Commander Lieutenant Trevor Lyons

After two years of a global pandemic, and the possibility that a ‘new normal’ may be around the corner, we woke up today to discover that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that we are tottering on the brink of World War 3. It is often surmised that a quick death is enviable compared to the long and painful process of recovery. Shattered limbs, shattered lives, shattered homes – all take a long time to erase the memory of the suffering.

Yet an old North Indian saying suggests that while there is one person on earth that remembers a person already passed, their spirit will continue to shine.

It was 1977 and I was working as General Manager in the small YWCA office of Toowoomba, a country town in Queensland, Australia. The office was a converted homestead now situated in the midst of a small park. Although the sun was shining I was bored through lack of stimulating work, when a young man strode in.

He exuded young masculine vitality, with boyish good looks, a physique that was built for jeans, and a personality that defied man, woman, or child not wanting to know and like him.

At that time Trevor Lyons must have been about 32, married for 7 years, two little girls, and like us, paying off a whopping great mortgage. He was a printer by trade but was making the visit because of his association with Apex, an Australian association dedicated to building a network of community services.

Basically, he came up with a proposition that Apex and YWCA combine together to support a new government youth project, to be called CYSS (Community Support Scheme). As he outlined the initiative it sounded so interesting that I was filled with enthusiasm.

A few days later we both duly sat before the small group of ladies that constituted the YWCA ‘board’, and after what to me was a stunning outline by Trevor, was met with deafening silence.

No, they weren’t interested. And that was that.

Long story – short account – over the next few weeks Trevor and I traveled to many regional branches of CYSS to view how they were run, yada, yada, yada, and a few months later I left the ‘Y’ and became Project Manager of the Toowoomba branch of the Community Youth Support Scheme.

During that time my husband and I met up with the Lyons family and found them to quickly become respected members of our social group. Trevor continued to be a fascinating man and a born raconteur. He brought to our lives, his experience of growing up on a small property in Bundaberg, and even more, his experience of the 1974 Brisbane floods. And here his wife Lesley also became a star. Up to now, she had not featured much interest to me. But the flood story changed all that.

She was a few years younger than I, so, therefore, was a very young woman when, with two small girls, she found herself stranded in a small attic of the family home with water lapping around her feet. With the nearest neighbor a few kilometers away, and water already way up past the living area: the family was completely isolated.

Trevor had managed to drag enough furniture upstairs to allow the girls to have makeshift beds, but there was little else, including a severe lack of food. With no telephone communication available, Trevor managed to put together a makeshift raft – and here comes the extraordinary part of the story.

A few cows had got stranded on higher ground within eye view. He made his way there through the debris, dead and decaying animals. and struggling snakes, and on landing on dry ground, managed to milk a very distraught cow. This gave immediate sustenance to them all for the immediate while.

But with help still not on its way, and his family hungry, now three days without food, the next day he was back to the hillock. This time with a sharp knife. He cut a small piece of flesh from the cow from the flank, taking as much care as possible to leave the hide flap crudely sewn back, so that the cow could recover. The family had a very tough bbq that night. But hunger was assuaged. They were rescued a few days later.

Needless to say, I took Lesley out of the ‘boring little wife’ basket soon after that story, and we went on to enjoy a wonderful warm friendship with this extraordinary couple.

A few years later, Trevor came to us with the news that he had bought a bus, was doing it up as a mobile home, and was about to take the family around Australia for a two-year exploratory escapade. This he did. With little money to finance this adventure, the intention was for Trevor to pick up casual work en route, and expedite this by sketching old homesteads and selling to the owners. With art highly competitive at this time I gave it little chance. But was I ever wrong?

When they returned he showed us his portfolio – copies of the houses he had sketched and sold. They were absolutely magnificent. But more was yet to come.

With his girls now High school age, they settled up in the old ancestral area of Bundaberg, about 3 hours from Toowoomba, where they had a few acres on the outskirts of town. Lesley worked part-time, and Trevor gathered the last of their savings and bought building materials. They continued living in the bus while Trevor set about building a house -. out of mud! I knew a little of this heritage process from my year with the National Trust. It’s a long, arduous procedure. But he did it – virtually single-handed. First digging the foundations, processing the clay soil into shapes, compressing and drying them, then building, brick by brick. Finally, the outside walls are plastered with stucco, layer by later until waterproof. This went on for three years. A four-bedroom home emerged. And even more, was yet to come. By now Trevor had attended a university course part-time and learned the practice of making and glazing domestic tiles. He built a kiln, fired it with wood from the property, and eventually was tiling the kitchen and bathrooms that could pass a Master Building Code.

Naturally, every minute was valuable during this time, and we didn’t see as much of the family as hoped. We kept in contact with snail mail and occasional telephone calls and looked forward to visiting sometime in the latter part of the year. With this in mind, I was delighted to hear from Lesley one Saturday afternoon thinking this would be the invitation to a much-awaited housewarming. The call was far different, leaving me stunned.

Trevor was dead. He had died a week before after a short and very aggressive bout of cancer. The funeral was a few days hence in Brisbane. We were given the details.

At the funeral, I was too far wrapped in my own grief to even consider how Lesley was faring. Yet once again, this small, diminutive lady seemed to be coping in her quiet manner while consoling her distraught girls,

The clergyman droned on, as they are wont to do, and the only thing I remember is his reference to Trevor’s war service in Vietnam. We had known of this, of course, but as Trevor had never made much of it, we had never discussed it in any great detail. Once again, we were to find out there had been depths to our friend that were completely unknown to us.

At the age of 20 the Bundaberg farm boy was one of the 50,000 Australians serving between 1962 and 1975 in support of South Vietnam, in a war that became politically and socially divisive all around the world. He was deeply affected by the constant killing of innocent women and children, the spraying of Agent Orange, the incessant bombing, and the horrors that went with it. An exploding Claymore anti-personnel mine ended his life as a soldier and left him with severe facial and eye injuries for which he had to undergo major reconstructive surgery. I can only credit the surgeon, as we had seen no signs of such severe disfigurement.

Years later he was to capture all this in a series of finite and detailed sketches which reflected his physical and mental injuries. The work is entitled Journeys in my Head, and once seen, are never forgotten.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C229056

That was thirty years ago and Trevor himself is probably forgotten by all but immediate family. But as a soldier, he represents one of the thousands, if not millions, of young men and women who take up arms for a good cause. Yes, all are unknown heroes who either die or continue to live in their own private hell.

Currently the news around the globe suggests that an ecocentric is taking the entire world into a war with no apparent reason, other than his own political vanity. Civilians are losing homes and lives. Many are taking up arms, and once again many will die a soldier’s death or live to be maimed or disfigured.

All we can do is thank them for their bravery – and remember them.

This post is also available on fastfictionpodcasts.com