From Mum & Dad (Loye & Gunny)

Happy 50th Birthday, Alan,

Remembering Alan James Hewitt, through the eyes of his Mother and Father.

To start with, he didn’t want to come into this harsh world when I wanted him to- he took over three days “ muckering around” before HE decided it was TIME. So he was born on 13^th December, 1960, at 5.30 a.m. weighing 7lb. 2oz. and with the cord tightly embed in his neck, so it was an agonizing and long (for me) few seconds before the doctor was able to remove it. By time I was moved back to bed, even my fingers were aching!!!

Alan was born ten months after we had lost our son Roger, so we both were very anxious parents. I panicked every time I thought he looked a bit sick, and Gunny was always making sure he was safe. So probably he was a bit molly-coddled and Colin would agree with that.

Theodore didn’t have a doctor until Alan was about eight months old, and he was one of his first patients, even before the hospital was opened. He awoke one night with a very red bite on his cheek and within minutes was running a temp of over 100deg. We rushed to town to Granny’s and called the very new doctor (Dr. MacMillan) who was recently out from Scotland and had no idea of poisonous things that bite in Australia. By another hour, Alan’s face was so swollen, even the nose was indiscernible, and all was a colorful mix of purple, black and red. I had still been breast-feeding him, but he was so delirious, I couldn’t hold him and Granny and Gunny were the only ones who could hold him still for any time. The Doctor rang doctors in Rockhampton who advised a certain injection - we all thought it must have been a red-back spider, but nothing was found in his cot or anywhere near, so that was only a guess. Very gradually, the injection started to make a difference, but we had to find a bottle for him the next day as he still wouldn’t breast-feed. It was days before the swelling and the vivid colour left his face and we were able to take him home. I can’t even remember what happened to Colin and Rae during that time - just don’t know where they went!

I can’t say he was ever robust, but he was a good and happy baby. I kept him every where I was, right until he was walking and that was very early. I’m sure he never walked - only ran constantly. I took him to a Doctor one day and asked for a tonic for him - he saw him running around, said there was nothing wrong with him and that I was the one who needed a tonic.

He was a loving child and climbed on my lap for years (Is he loving now, Tracey?) One friend commented how after school he would run to me with the biggest smile when I went to pick him up. That was before he thought that was being a bit sissy of course!

It wasn’t long though before all he wanted to do was work. He started mowing the lawn before he could hardly see over the handlebar, and later he would mow Granny’s lawn - of course, he was paid well for that! When I was Secretary of the Show Society, he worked cleaning up the grounds while I was in the office getting the books ready. Of course, he was always willing to muster or get on the tractor. Gunny can add more about that.

One thing that Gunny told me to say was how he was so skillful at rowing the boat over the river when it was running. Maybe strange to say, but we had the river up a lot in those years, and Alan would row himself across and pick up the school bus at Harrison’s corner. One day Gunny had rowed some bull buyers across - Bruce Davison and his son , Allan Glenn the agent and another large man. When they were going home, Allan Glenn said he would row them across. It was soon evident that he couldn’t manage the current, and our little Alan had to jump in and row these four big men across which was quite an effort.

When Alan was about four or five, he had a hernia. Dr. Thomas was the doctor. He asked me w hat I thought was wrong with Alan, and I said he had a lump in his testicles. With that, Alan spun around and said “I thought it was my bloody BALLS.” The doctor’s wife told me later, that he had kept laughing all night about Alan’s remark. Anyway he had his operation in Theodore, and I was told to take him home just a couple of days later as they couldn’t keep him in bed where he should have been.

He was friendly with the Polkinghorne triplets and we often had one of them out to stay for the weekend. One weekend, the three came for the weekend, it poured raining and we couldn’t get them back to school on Monday, and it was too wet for them to play outside, so I gave them lessons. They had to write a letter to Rae, who was away at college by then. Years later, Rae said she still had those letters !

Another frequent visitor for Alan was Greg Pearce, Aunty Avonil’s son who was a year older than Alan. It must be the Freeman side of the family that has the most devilment in it as those two certainly found enough crazy things to do. Nothing caused any damage but we certainly had some laughs at things they did.

As even now at Fifty, Alan was constantly needing repairs from the doctor, but somehow, he still remained scrawny but reasonably healthy. Probably the worst accident was when he smashed his leg at the Showgrounds. That was after he was married and Tracey was away in Toowoomba at the time. It was a compound fracture and he was flown out to Rockhampton that afternoon. Tracey flew back from Brisbane to R’ton to him. That was pretty bad, but he has had other accidents to worry both Tracey and me. He definitely is “accident prone” and of course, anything with cattle and horses is an “accident prone” occupation.

He had trouble with his schoolwork, but he also had some terrible teachers and so I helped him with his homework and some extras most nights. He stayed at Theodore High and then went to Emerald Pastoral College after Grade 10. Of course, I don’t know what went on there, but I know he came home able to drink fair quantities of rum, so I suppose that was the most favoured class he attended.

When he came home from Emerald, he again worked hard and long hours, mainly on the tractor, and I think he played a bit hard when he went to parties - that rum of course! One day, Kate and Harley Wilson came out to the billabong for a picnic with us and with some of their Brisbane relatives, one of them being a pretty little girl not long finished school. It wasn’t long before Alan eyed her off and went and saddled his horse and rode down to show everyone -or was it showing off to just one.

Next holidays, Tracey came to help Harley in his surgery, and Kate rang me one day to ask me if I thought Alan would take Tracey out and introduce her to some of the young people in town as she was a bit lonely. I don’t think Tracey did get to meet some of the others, as Alan made sure he kept her right beside him as much as possible. They were still only bits of kids when they became engaged and married.

His main loves now and I think in this order are Tracey, his three boys (or men now) his dogs and of course the horses. I sometimes wonder ( sorry Trace) that the dogs might be first on the list as he has so many of them.
After we split up the M.B.@ L. Hewitt @ Sons partnership, Alan took over managing Charvel Graz. Co., while Colin managed Hewitt Cattle Co. I stayed with Alan in Charvel Graz. Co. A few years later, I was talking to our Accountant, and he asked if I had ever congratulated Alan on how he was managing the Co., and if I hadn’t it was time I did. Well, Alan, if I didn’t then I am doing so now, and we are both proud of how you and your wife and family have carried on with Charvel. We still think of it as home for us and it always will be. (I’d just like to see that new shed cleaned out more often).

We do love you - Mum and Dad