Michael Thomas (Mick) Fleming

 

As we go through this journey that we call life, and if we are one of the fortunate ones who by random act of chance was born in a society of relative security, access to health care, clean water and an education then, if our luck holds out, we get to experience all the emotions and sensations that life provides – love, happiness, sadness, joy, grief, excitement, fear, pleasure and pain.  We’re all on the same ride along the moving footpath of life and none of us know where or when it will end, just that it will – and that for some of us it’s getting uncomfortably closer.

I realise that this is a maudlin way to start writing a few words to honour a wonderful man, only I’m reminded, as I grow older that there are quite a few more who have completed their journey than there were when I was about halfway into my own.  I have grieved and shed tears for all of them – but none more than my lovely friend, brother-in-law and great mate, Michael Thomas (Mick) Fleming.

They say the difference between friends and relatives, is that you only get to choose your friends. Mick became a relative, and I in turn became a member of the Fleming family, the day Pauline and I walked down the aisle almost fifty years ago. Mick was a dear, dear friend and I miss him - he was a brother.

We know that Mick’s journey with his beloved Maureen began when he joined the army after he’d had enough of the misery of working in a coal mine in 1950s Nottingham.  It was in Ashford that he met a pretty 19-year-old Maid of Kent and knew at once that she was the one. They were married shortly after following his demobilisation in 1958. After a brief honeymoon by the seaside, with only enough for their fare, they took the train to Nottingham.  Mick told me a tale that when a fellow traveller, noticing they hadn’t eaten throughout the journey offered them one of her sandwiches, he proudly said “Thanks very much, but we never eat when we travel.” 

They made their home in Ashford and lived there for many years. Although when we lived in the UK, we were in a different part of the country, Mick and I became friends and though Pauline and I moved to Australia a few year later, we continued whenever we could to share time together. 

Apart from the times we spent at their homes in Ashford and Rugby, we shared memories in France, Cornwall and Australia.

I could write many stories of the times the four of us shared – Mick, Maureen, Pauline and me.  Road trips up and down the NSW coast, lunches and dinners at iconic restaurants and resorts, and lunches and dinners at cheap pubs and roadside rest stops.  It was always the same – laughter, enjoyment and affection. Not wanting to make this story “too long, didn’t read” (TLDR), I’ll mention only three events which remain in my memory.

Christmas 2002 – their first visit to Australia. A wonderful time driving from Sydney to the Gold Coast in a rented VW people carrier. Staying in a borrowed apartment overlooking the beach at Broadbeach. Swimming in the surf, followed by Christmas carols and barbecue, looking out at sand and ocean in 35-degree heat, then later, watching from a second-floor balcony, glass in hand as a summer storm tore through the area, reducing visibility to a few feet and dropping 200-300 mm of rain in less than an hour, only to be gone the next day and sunshine restored.

Easter 2005 – again in Australia.  A day out sailing with Ian Kiernan.  Perhaps not as well-known outside of Australia, a brief visit to Wikipedia will tell anyone interested that Ian was an Australian icon, a former Australian of the Year, round the world yachtsman and environmental campaigner who founded the “Clean up Australia” organisation and inspired millions of volunteers and supporters over many years. I was fortunate to have known Ian through business connections and worked with him for a number of years until he sadly passed away in 2018. When I told Ian that Mick was coming to Sydney for a holiday, he immediately offered to spend the day with us on Sydney Harbour in his classic fifty-year-old yawl “Maris” – the same yacht in which he completed four or five Sydney to Hobart races. She was then, and still is now a wonderful sight sailing on the beautiful harbour. It was a truly delightful day. Ian brought along a picnic lunch and a couple of cold beers, and we could not have picked a better way to spend our time.  Later that afternoon, Ian presented Mick with an inscribed copy of his autobiography, “Coming Clean”, which from that day had pride of place on Mick’s bookshelf.

December 2018 – Brisbane.  I can’t finish a story about Mick without at least one golf story. I have lost count of the many enjoyable (but fiercely competitive) rounds of golf we played together – sometimes just the two of us, and on other occasions with Paul, and once with cousin Colin - a great day out with the wives at the Briary in Birmingham. Mick taught me all I ever knew on a golf course (or so he would have anyone who happened to be in earshot believe). He was a stickler for etiquette, but really understood the value of a good sledge. “Are you sure you want to play off the blue tees, Mike? It’s a lot closer from the yellow ones you know.” 

He never wore a glove – when it was his turn to hit the ball off the tee, he would step up to the ball, spit on his hands, rub them together, grab his driver firmly and swing – and the ball would sail down the fairway – often.  If not, he would issue a round curse, and stride off after it ready for the next blast.

My favourite round, and coincidentally the last time we played together was Christmas Eve, 2018 at Victoria Park Golf Course in Brisbane, a beautifully cared for public course, close to the CBD. The course sadly closed a couple of years ago in the name of inner-city development but on that day, we walked a lovely hilly course with well cared for fairways and manicured greens.  I can’t remember who won on the day (well, I can – but it doesn’t matter). It was a close game, we had a lot of laughs, swore a lot – mostly at the ball and not each other and enjoyed an ice-cold ale in the beer garden afterwards – something to remember for ever.

I’d like to close this short homage with a few words from Terry Pratchett from his novel, Reaper Man.

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."

Farewell, Bro!