By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
BELMONT’S Bet Holland loved the constantly changing vista of Geelong’s waterfront, so she decided to have her ashes laid to rest on the waves of Corio Bay.
It’s just that her request took Geelong Boat House owners Malcolm and Czes Ralton by surprise when four of her closest friends booked for lunch and brought Bet’s ashes with them.
After a varied and chequered life, Bet, born Betty England in 1924 at Red Cliffs, developed an attachment to the rear deck of the Western Beach dining venue.
“We’ve only been going since November, so she made the attachment quite quickly,” Malcolm said.
“She was a real character, had a great sense of humour and she was switched on. She knew what she liked and she let you know,” he laughed.
“Every time she came down to lunch she’d tell me, ‘I’ve escaped again’.”
Bet often lunched with her close friends Sue Brew, Karen Neave, Sylvia Brain and Barbara Smail and shouted them one final repast to celebrate the scattering of her ashes from the rear deck.
Grovedale’s Sue Brew said Bet loved sport, following the Western Bulldogs.
“She worked as a seamstress and dressmaker and she could create anything she put her hands to,” Sue said.
Bet left three children, five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren but her friends became like family to her, Sue said.
“She spent many a special celebration with us, including Christmas, which won’t be the same.
“She loved a joke and was always the first one to play up and get into mischief. She was a life-of-the party type of person,” she said.
“She loved the waterfront scenery because it changes all the time so she kept going back to it all the time.
“She much preferred to be on the water instead of in an urn in a brick wall somewhere.”
