A phone from Frank Bailey, eldest son of Judy and Eddie, was warmly received on the last day of April 2003. Within the last three months, Frank has seen the website, and was pleased to have been contacted.
Frank lives in Sydney with his wife and their five daughters. He said that he remembered enjoying fishing with his Grandfather, and was quite young when Uncle Fred died. Even at that young age young Frank, having noticed scarring on his grandfather, asked what had happened. Uncle Fred, a sailor in the Navy, was on a DEMS ship and was injured in the shoulder when he was the only gunner defending his ship which a Kamikaze pilot was aiming for. Frank joined the navy, and two vessels, ships, he was on were: HMNZS "Taupo", and HMNZ "Canterbury".
Frank left the Navy, and went through university. He undertook primary teaching, moved to England and later returned to Australia. He did some important re-training and gained his PhD and is currently the principal of a middle school in Australia.
A keen parachutist, particularly whilst he was at the London Skydiving site in Essex, Frank had a brush with the asphalt on the runway. He has now decided that being the pilot of the plane is giving him great satisfaction. Frank has qualified to fly the following planes: Piper Warrior, Piper Saratoga and Piper Dakota. He is also qualified to fly the Victor Partenavia. (The weblinks are to give us a clue of what the planes may look like) What Frank has in his sites is to get his ratings for a Cessna 402. He has to gain his Endorsement to qualify to fly this plane, some 5 hours training and he is aiming to fly to New Zealand. He currently takes trips to either Melbourne or Brisbane on a regular basis.
Judy's husband, Eddie, was from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire and left England in 1960 and he currently lives in Sydney in 2003.
Judy died in 1994 and Aunty Zoe went to stay for some months prior. Michael lives in Australia and has regular contact with Frank and Peter lives in Auckland. Their sister Debbie lives in Australia. More to follow, photos and anecdotes from Frank, and his brothers and sister. The Blowpack Company has provided employment for Eddie and then son Peter but it has been Michael who has been working there for years, up to the present day in 2003. The company manufactures plastic bottles. The family lived in Western Australia, the weather suited the family, as many in Perth would confirm, a long way from their Fairclough Road home in Birkdale. Eddie spoke of Judy's detmination when she had been told her health assessment. Judy returned to New Zealand to be there for the birth of her grandchild, this being Liana, and another determination was to see Frank married to Viv at their wedding in August 1994. A period of hospitalisation did not diminish Judy's goals and on 8th December 1994, she and Eddie celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. The next goal was for Judy to hear of the choral singing of Frank's wife Viv and their daughters singing at their church, scheduled for 7.15 pm on 18 December. With her mother and husband Frank present, Judy passed away at 7.15pm, in her hospital room. The family had fulfilled her final wishes of attending the church evensong.
There is a commemorative plaque in the memorial wall at the St John's Church which celebrates Judy, in the town on Camden, near Picton, south west of Sydney.
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