Eulogy at Albert Asbury’s Memorial Service Friday, 8th May 2009 Sean Dorney In those last few days when Albert was surrounded by his family and they were passing messages to him from quite a number of us, I’m told that when mine was relayed, Albert said, “Oh, so Sean found time to check in between deportations!” He also woke up at one stage, looked at them standing around the bed and asked, “What is this? A fucking death watch?” That was pure Albert, cracking jokes and getting it correct, calling it as it was right to the finish despite the pain he was in. When Ingrid asked me last week to do this Eulogy she said, “Dad would not want it to be, in one of his favourite terms, all about wailing and the gnashing of teeth.” So, I’m not going to be too maudlin here and some of my relating of this abbreviated version of Albert’s life’s tale may seem pretty irreverent. So be warned. In the past week, I’ve been annoying Albert’s daughter, Ingrid, his second wife, Lyn, and a score of former colleagues asking them what they’d like said here today about a man I regard as the most electrifying journalist I’ve ever known. I’ve been given so much fodder that I could be accused of plagiarising SBS – something Albert would never have approved of - four billion stories about Albert and counting. And all four billion well worth re-telling. However, I have been warned that far too many of Albert’s tales would be entirely unsuitable to be told in a church. And that if I did there’s a good chance that this magnificent new roof that has been put on Saint John’s Anglican cathedral could crash down on all of us. Now, wouldn’t that amuse Albert mightily? I used the term “electrifying” because Albert was absolutely wired up as a newsman, he was a super charged journo’s journo, and he generated power in all those who worked around him – especially the younger journalists. I got a terrific charge out of him early in my career and when I look around, I see an impressive number of Queensland ABC journalists who have gone on to kick butt as news people in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and all over the world – a lot of us have Albert to thank for nurturing and believing in us. Let me start by relating the final conversation I had with Albert. After being deported from Fiji just over three weeks ago, I rang him to see if I could pop around. Lyn said he was pretty crook but he’d be pleased to speak to me on the phone. He came on and it was unmistakably Albert although he sounded terrible. “Albert,” I said, “you’ll love this one. The two Fijian Immigration guys who were driving me the three hours from Suva to Nadi were in the front seat of a twin-cab and I was in the back. Before we’d left Suva, they’d asked me if I’d like a coke. We pulled over and I bought three cokes – one for each of us. An hour and a half later, with the rain coming down and it being a pitch black night, the driver turned around and said, ‘Mr Sean! Want a piss?’ ‘I’ve just spent five hours in detention,’ I said, ‘and my coke has just been totally absorbed but if you guys want to pull over that’s fine by me.’ They did. And to my surprise they left the car running and both jumped out and went off the side of the road into the bushes. Albert,” I said, “I was really tempted to do what I know what you might have done - jumped over into the front seat and taken off!” That really appealed to Albert. You can see it, can’t you? Two big Fijians, half way though, watching as their escort disappeared in their government vehicle in the rain in the dark. Albert may well have done it – not that the end result would have been too good. But the practical joke would have been just too precious for him to resist. Albert Charles Asbury was born in Brisbane on 17 June 1939, to Albert William Charles Asbury and Phyllis Ellen Edith Till. Ingrid tells me that the origins of Albert’s sense of humour would have been apparent to anyone who knew his parents. They were fond of pointing out that their initials, read together were P-E-E and A-W-C: pee and a wc. Somehow, I doubt the two peeing Fijians knew that connection. Albert was the second child, following Betty Frances who was seven years older. Both Albert’s mother and sister hid their ages and it was only on the death of Phyllis that the family discovered that her passport reflected a birth date some five years later than the one on her birth certificate. Phyllis and Betty apparently doted on Albert although Phyllis was fond of saying: “Albert you are unreal”. Ingrid tells me his mother did not mean this as a compliment. Later, I believe, two generations of female Asbury’s on, that saying became, “Albert, you’re a shocker!” Albert spent his early years at Newfarm here in Brisbane and moved to Townsville where he undertook his secondary education at Townsville Grammar. Before learning this, I had always assumed Albert was born in Townsville, like I was. That’s another lesson we all should have learnt from Albert – don’t rely on assumptions. Anyway, sorry Newfarm, but I’m claiming Albert as a genuine, rolled gold, Townsville larrikin. Albert’s schooling was cut short by the death of his father. Albert was just 15. He immediately left school to support his mother. Albert never went on to Grade 12, possibly doing just Grade 10, then called Junior in Queensland. This was the mid 1950’s when my father was a specialist surgeon in Townsville. He’d gone to Townsville in 1949 as Superintendent of the Townsville General Hospital and was a relentless campaigner for improving education in the north and was one of those who played a role in getting Townsville a university. But he used to say that in the 1950’s Grade 8, Scholarship as it was then called, was the BA of the north. If Grade 8 was North Queensland’s equivalent of an Arts degree at the time then Albert’s Grade 10 was something like the North’s PhD! It helped Albert begin his career in journalism at Radio 4TO in Townsville. He joined the ABC as an Assistant Regional Journalist in 1958 earning the equivalent of $37 a week. He was about 18 at the time but the ABC employment form had a question asking him if he had served in the armed forces in World War One. It would have been typical of Albert if he had ticked that box and added, “Yeah, and I taught bloody Breaker Morant how to fight in the Boer War too, you know!” By early 1962 Albert had been promoted to a C Grade Journalist in Townsville. Nobody could ever say Albert did not have an eye for a pretty woman. At a function in Townsville, Albert spied a beautiful one, Maureen Hoolihan, a Flight Attendant with TAA who was helping serve the coffee. I believe Albert at the time described Maureen as “a good looking sort” and he set about perusing her. Albert and Maureen married in January 1963 and their first child, Ingrid Catherine, was born that October. Around this time there was another journalist in Townsville at the ABC who was much shyer and less confident around women. He was also intent on wooing somebody he fancied and he sought the advice of the master, Albert. Unable to resist any opportunity for a practical joke, Albert advised him on which restaurant in Townsville to take her too. “You’ve got to impress a lady,” I believe he said and finding out that his pupil knew little about wine Albert advised: “Click your fingers, summon the wine waiter and tell him you want their best bottle of Sparkling Legopener.” In 1964, the biggest industrial strike in Australia’s history broke out in Mount Isa and Albert went there. He did a brilliant job supplying superlative coverage for the ABC and whipping all the gun industrial relations journalists from the south sent up to cover the unfolding story. Nobody could work out how Albert’s yarns kept popping up on the ABC when the telephone and telegraph connections were so problematic. When the lengthy strike ended in 1965, Albert held a party in his hotel room. Somebody stumbled against a cupboard door and out tumbled roll after roll of telex paper and punched tape. Albert had gained secret access to the Mount Isa Mines restricted telex room. Albert’s second daughter, Kristine Ellen, arrived on 30 July 1965. In December 1966, Albert applied for and won the job of Journalist in Charge, Longreach on a B Grade. By now his salary had risen to the princely sum of $80.40 per week. The family joined him after the birth of his son, Michael Charles, on 4 February 1967. What I’m reading here is from Ingrid: “In typical Albert style, on the day they arrived, he left Maureen, and three very young children, waiting for several hours at the airport while he was out covering a story.