Eulogy for Bonnie Bryant
(as written by Pollyanna Forshaw)
It is often when we come together for love of a person - when we are all
together like this - that we learn more about them than when they were in the
everyday of our lives. I was lucky enough to know Bonnie for 35 years so
somewhere along the line I found out a lot about our Bon that was even more than
the ‘earthmother’ or ‘mother hen’ we knew her as. Even so, when Ted gave me his
history research I learnt more. I am privileged to share it.
Bonnie, or actually Dorothy Yvonne was born on the 1st March 1923 in Kent,
England to Harley & Dorothy Rudge. There you go... I thought she was born and bred
Irish but her dad was Welsh and she was born on English soil. And... I had thought
she hated the name Dorothy... but at one stage when she became ill she insisted on
that name – It was only for a short time though. Her hospital sign soon went
back to Bonnie... Whatever she might have thought about Dorothy none of us knew her
any other way than as “Bonnie”.
Bonnie was the eldest of three children. When she was four she had a seemingly
simple accident that would affect her for the rest of her life. Sitting at her
grandparent’s table, she had put her foot behind the leg of the chair. When she
got up she neglected to move her foot and she fell. For some reason her
grandfather didn’t think she had seriously hurt her leg and it was not until her
mother returned to collect her some days later that Bonnie was taken to the
doctor. She was placed in splint the entire length of her little body for a
whole year and ultimately she was left with one leg an inch and a half shorter
than the other leg. This leg and later the hip and joints were a constant source
of pain. We were all aware - and yet unaware - of ‘her leg’. My own children
thought for years that Bonnie just stood very elegantly: on her toes, and walked
with more rhythm than most of us could muster. But for Bon it was painful. Alongside the physical pain there was a different pain as well. Bonnie was a
devastatingly fine actress and might have had many leading roles but she didn’t
get them. She was philosophical but always felt that this leg thing and
her height stopped her chances. She became champion of the small role and
you wouldn’t dare in her hearing to lament missing out on “something meatier”
but getting a tiny part.
No small parts…only small actors!
Also when she was four, Bonnie’s father died suddenly of septicaemia. This was
an era without pensions or child-minding centres or pre-schools. And in
the next five years the family moved several times staying with different
relatives in England and in Ireland. Only one home was idyllic and gave
her fond memories of childhood. Carrigans in county Donegal, Northern Ireland.
But even here there was tragedy when her mother’s new love a local farmer,
was killed by a bull before they married. So Bonnie missed out on a new
stepfather and the normal family happiness that might have brought.
When she was nine the children went to Scotland to live with an Aunt Sophie.
From reports by the three children their Aunt was a very strict woman and the
accommodation poor, so life there was not a pleasant experience for Bonnie to
say the least. It was probably fortuitous that one of the very few people
not to like Bonnie was this aunt so that when the opportunity arose and her
mother’s employer allowed just one of her children to come live with her, the
aunt sent Bon home to Ireland and her mother.
Bonnie’s teen years were spent ballroom dancing with her friends and going to
the movies. She loved dancing. Later she and Ted would burn the floor together
at ball room dancing. And she continued to love movies – especially the romantic
ones - all her life. Some of us here have watched the black and white Random
Harvest - her favourite movie - more than once with her, and others will have
heard her in raptures about The Notebook. Bonnie and romance? Inseparable. As
she grew older she would often laugh that one advantage of age was forgetting
the stories so she could watch them and enjoy them all over again.
At sixteen Bon trained for four years at Royal Belfast Children's Hospital,
Northern Ireland becoming a Registered Sick-Children's Nurse. She was
twenty and it
was 1943 – WWII. Bon often mentioned that each night she and the others had to
move all the children to the basement of the hospital as a precaution. The
Germans were bombing the nearby Belfast Dockyards. Fortunately their aim wasn’t
too good and the Hospital was never hit. Neither were the dockyards.
But the leg was not up to the constant strain of nursing. Part of a
reference written for her on her resignation: notes - “She handles patients and
relatives very pleasantly but her discipline is excellent. I should be
very glad to see her appointed to a position of responsibility".
A disciplinarian is not the sort of title you would normally associate with
Bonnie. But I do recall the rare time that she sacked someone from a play
for pushing the boundaries. Yes, she could be a boss. That’s why she was a great
director. Meanwhile, Bonnie applied for and obtained a position as Assistant
Matron at London County Council Day Nursery. Bonnie loved the babies. She
remained a children’s nurse in her heart and in the very sensible and easy
approaches she had to all our sick babies and children over the years.
Bonnie finally resigned from nursing in 1950... but for very good reason. It was
the main reason affecting any major decision she made after that – love for Ted.
This was surely the romance made in heaven. All of us knew it... they had the most
wonderfully, happy, passionate marriage.
When Betty, Ted’s sister and Bonnie’s pen pal married, Ted wrote to the Irish
lass on the other side of the world to let her know. It was the beginning of a
beautiful friendship and eventually they were corresponding every day. Bonnie
always said she knew her man better from those letters than many who had had a
normal courtship. In fact they believed they knew each other so well that Ted
wrote and asked for her hand in marriage and he sailed off to Ireland with the
wedding cake. After a fortnight’s honeymoon in the south of Ireland they
sailed for Australia on the 17th March 1950 aboard the Orchardes disembarking at Fremantle, Western Australia.
They stayed there for a weekend before flying to Sydney. That same plane
crashed on the return journey to Perth. A few hours and a few miles difference
and so many of us would not have had Bon’s influence in our lives. Those are the
historical details. The romantic ones are that there was a partnership of love
for nearly forty years, that there were four sons, that there was a beloved man
nursed for months by his chickie before he died in her arms, that there were
love-letters read and reread and there was a photo under her pillow for the
twenty years after Ted died that was so kissed each night that its image was
kissed away. A love made in heaven and now continuing in heaven.
That Bonnie is now in Ted’s arms is all the comfort we need.
Many of you may recall this area was noted for citrus trees and egg farming. Ted and his brother Stan owned a 100 acre
orchard and chicken farm in Tuggerah,
that part currently known as Mardi. Bonnie worked on the farm preparing eggs for
market and packing oranges. A different world from Ireland and nursing, but she
was never one to sit idle. In winter she would bring Ted and his brothers hot
chocolate. In summer she wandered the orchard to give them ice-cold drinks. And…she raised those boys. Bon worried about each of them. Until in these last
years it was their turn. Bonnie was proud of them and rightly so. No sons could
have been more caringly attentive throughout the last years of Bonnie’s frail
time.
Bonnie was always a performing artist. She was an accomplished Mezzo Soprano,
a heritage of her welsh baritone father who was described as having ‘the voice
of a full orchestra’. She often sang at weddings, at functions for the Red
Cross, the Country Women's Association and other organisations either as a
soloist or in a duet with her great friend Hazel Caldwell. And she’s passed the
genetic code on. One of Bon’s great joys and a source of immense pride and
pleasure has been to listen to the very precious singing of her granddaughter
Genevieve, similarly a talented Soprano and also instrumentalist and song
writer. In 1958 Bonnie and Ted joined the Wyong Drama Group. Bonnie was 35. Bon
was a wonderful actress and she often received media attention. One reviewer
wrote this comment on her performance in the 1963 play See How They Run:
"Bonnie who can handle dramatic or comedy roles with equal aptitude was
convincing as the sour Miss Skillon when sober, then splendid as the gay Miss
Skillon when tipsy."
She was always gay when tipsy in real life... after drinking a thimbleful it
seemed, but she was never ever sour. And In 1965 “...More than 200 people enjoyed
the play Murder Mistaken in the comfort of the new Memorial Hall. Bonnie
Bryant played the part of a retired barmaid... Her acting was superb and would have
been creditable even for a professional.”
Bonnie was a judge for The Lion’s Club "Youth of the Year" award judging at
the Wyong Shire and at the Regional level for an amazing twenty-one years. I filled in
for her once when she was ill and heard the esteem in which she was held. She
also helped as a volunteer in local schools to teach children to read. In recent
times she was recognised for her years of work and support of the local
community with a citizenship award. Well deserved! And who will ever forget the
cakes and slices and scones made for fetes and fund-raisers and family and
friends! All in the hand mixing she’d say... I made sure I took lessons. And it was
lessons in kindness too.
When I was ill with little children, Bon would arrive with her: “It’s nothing
really. Just a very ordinary savoury mince”. It was never ordinary. Bonnie was
never ordinary. Bonnie was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother (Nonnie) to
six and
great-grandmother to nine children. She was always celebrating the lives of her
family and their achievements, academic, artistic or sporting. And she has been
a great source of comfort, of support, and of understanding for her family and
us her innumerable friends. Actually Bon worried about all of us and you had to
be careful not to be too open about your own concerns because she would
immediately make them hers and worry till the matter was resolved. We all loved
her and she loved us.
Bonnie was more than my friend. We shared a passion for drama and believing
we were giving something through it. She was my mentor, gave me the
glamorous parts she would have enjoyed and made sure a shy person believed in
that glamour enough to walk it onto the stage.
She taught me about silences and projection about directing and comic timing,
about the audience and loving them, about the humility we should have if the
public allows us to put ourselves out there. They were not just lessons in
drama, they were splendid lessons in life and we are grateful for her life...
Genevieve is going to sing for Bon today. Listen carefully to the words she
has composed. If we listen to the word... there is no more perfect way to sum up
our Bon... that in the simple there is something beautiful. And Bonnie... you were
just that... simply beautiful.
In her drama life Bonnie always held that truth in playing a character down
to the smallest touch and gesture would always be the touchstone of connecting
with and gifting the audience. Bonnie’s sons, knowing her humility, did not
think Bonnie would want accolades. But sometimes it isn’t up to the recipient...
In theatre when our experience as audience participators has been superb, we
thank the giver of that experience with a standing ovation. Those of us, all of
us here, who have shared life’s journey with Bon know that her truth of
character and her part in our lives down to the smallest gesture of love has
gifted us with a splendid experience. Need I ask...? Let us stand and let Bon see
now and hear now our admiration, our gratitude, our hearts, as we celebrate her
life, a life that as her son Ted summed up was: “A life well lived and well
loved.”
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