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James Alan Richards

Jim Richards OBL

Thank you all for attending today to mark the conclusion of a significant life.

Our father and friend led by example in a life of helping and supporting others.
He also achieved great success as a business leader and reached his pinnacle in representing Western Australia in London.

He followed his father’s interest in his origins and traced our family history, providing valuable information for those following and produced a record of his life that has helped me to honor him today.

Jim Richards started life in 1913 as the first son in an eventual family of four sons. His first experience of helping and caring came with his brother Jeff who needed help throughout a sadly short life .His other brothers are, Bob, who is with us today and Ian who with the help of technology is watching this via the Web in Melbourne after spending quality time with him recently.

As a young man Jim joined a service organization called Toc H and devoted much of his spare time to helping disabled and terminally Ill people by taking them for wheel chaired walks and visits to the cinema. This side of his character has continued throughout his life, with pivotal roles in the Lion’s Save Sight campaign, the establishment of the Hollywood Hospice and Legacy.
As a Legatee he looked after the welfare of as many as seventy newly bereaved widows. There were times when Mum commented that he spent more time with his Legacy widows than with her but I’m sure that she understood the importance of this support.

Dad grew up in the depression and found great difficulty in getting employment so to keep him off the street his father enrolled him in a correspondence course in salesmanship and marketing which was to prove of great value in the future.
Eventually, through a family contact he was able to gain employment in one of Adelaide’s larger department stores. Gradually rising to the position of salesman he was posted to soft furnishings and bed linen.

It was this job that led to his marriage.

Joyce Cooper with her sister, who ran a small private hospital, visited to select sheets etc., to outfit the hospital and he was able to make one that department’s biggest sales. He must have seen something in my mother’s eyes as he arranged to deliver the items personally.
One thing led to another and resulted in four children and over sixty years of marriage.

Not long after my birth in 1941 Dad volunteered to serve his country in time of need and joined the AIF.

His brother, Ian recently told me that he showed up on his first leave home with a bomb disposal patch on his tunic, which was definitely not well received. We can only assume that he was good at it or was moved to other responsibilities before operating on his first bomb.
On another leave visit I’m told he brought an Owen gun home with some ammunition, very unlikely today. Male relatives from around our country town are said to have all fired a few shots and the story goes that I, at the age of three or four pulled the trigger under supervision and distinctly remember being told that I’d shot a hole in Grandpa’s tank. This may sound unlikely to his ex service friends but I believed it for many years.

He spent time overseas on an outpost called Maurati Island which also served as a US Base and being in Stores, at times had to pilfer materials from the Americans, as the Aussies were, at the time, poorly supplied. This exposes another side of his character, which was possibly handed down from a distant ancestor called Hannibal Richards who was hanged as a smuggler and ship-wrecker well back in time.

Bill and Jenny were both conceived during the war, which indicates that homecomings were warm if infrequent.

Bill and I both remember Dad’s return home as he managed to arrive in the middle of Xmas dinner in 1945. Grandpa Cooper remarked that Jim must have been fed well in the army as he couldn’t eat much of the rich food, little realizing that army rations had been pretty meager and that Dad needed time to get used to normal food.

At this time we lived in a corrugated iron cottage at the bottom of Grandpa’s paddock and while looking for a new direction he used his skills in making furniture and I can still remember the smell of the hot glue pot as he worked. In later years he continued to make furniture as we moved from state to state with his career and eventually making valued items for his children to help us set up homes when we married.

He looked in vain at many sales roles before settling on a job as Commercial Traveler for the Rawley Company and bought an old Plymouth which he fitted out with cabinets and drawers to hold all his products. He was lucky to get an area near home, in fact the Clare Valley, now well known for it’s wines. He regularly visited the residents of the nearby towns and farms and became famous for helping save one farmer’s prized bull which was down and suffering from bloat. In those days the usual treatment was to stab the animal to release the gas build up, a treatment that was often fatal. Dad administered Rawleys Bloat Ease, the bull recovered and dad’s sales soared.

With confidence growing he was encouraged to seek work with more scope for the future. Eventually he was accepted for a position with a new oil company called Ampol, which was just starting in South Australia. In his first week he sold only one drum of oil but that was a better effort than the other chap on the team. Times were hard but he gradually rose through the ranks and was sent to Perth to set up Ampol in WA. He performed well and Perth was soon dotted with new Ampol service stations.

The company recognized his value and after four years sent us all off to Sydney where he took a number of pivotal roles over a period off six years.

He had a yearning though for Perth and when the opportunity arose he opted to return as he could see the potential for this state and future advantages for his children.
Around this time he became a member of the East Perth Football Club and helped in fund raising by establishing a businessmen’s

Support group. He and Mum attended games regularly but Mum would occasionally have to be asked to tone down her barracking as she was a fan who took the game seriously and I mean loudly.

When Dad was about my age he decided to retire and was just starting to find life without pressure boring when, then Premier, Sir Charles Court asked him to go to London to represent the state as Agent General. This was a first as previous appointees had been chosen from the public service. He took his role very seriously and developed many business contacts between WA an England to the benefit of both sides. They were guests of honour at a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace and of course met the Queen who my mother described as “short but very nice”. The thought of Dad in Morning suit replete with top hat and Mum curtsying just doesn’t fit.

While they were there we children and our young families all enjoyed a visit which included a ride in the chauffer driven limousine with WA’s flag flying up front.

He obviously made a good impression as towards the end of his term he was accorded the honor of Freeman of the City of London. This was a very ancient title, which carried with it, among other obscure rights, the honor of being hanged by the neck with a silken rope, should he later fall that far from favor.

Among other promotional ideas, he put forward the concept of a yacht race to commemorate the original journey of the ship ‘Parmelia’ from Plymouth to Perth. This was carried forward after his return and resulted in a very successful event to mark our 150th year.

His work as Agent General and his many community projects back in Perth resulted in the Queen awarding him The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the pinnacle of his career and richly deserved. A miniature of that award is on the coffin today. The full sized version along with his service medals have been proudly worn by my son Matt on Anzac day marches since presented to him by Dad two years ago. 

In retirement yet again he was unable to rest and so set up libraries for the residents of the two retirement villages in which they lived. The most recent, at RAAFA in Meriwa, bears his name “The James Richards Library” in honor of his efforts.

I think you’ll agree, a significant life for a person who led by example and a life of helping and supporting others.         

Hello
Jen’s father, my father in-law, passed away yesterday evening Thursday 25 November 2004. Jim’s wife Mabel Joyce RICHARDS known as Joyce passed on earlier this year.
Jim’s service career is outlined in the Highgate RSL Sub-Branch Anniversary Booklet page 89.
He was an Army Engineer. (Holdfast).
Jim had a distinguished career in private enterprise with several companies prior to joining AMPOL and setting up service stations in the East before moving West to set and manage the company in WA.
A keen East Perth supporter, aren’t we all??
He was the WA Agent General in London 1975 -78.
Jim was also President of Torchbearers and then President of Perth Legacy.
He headed many community groups, he made a difference.
More later.
Regards
Ian Mulholland

 

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