“When Dad was at his best, he was the best.”

Family, friends and colleagues gathered today at St Mary‘s Cathedral in Sydney for the funeral of legendary journalist Mike Willesee.

Willesee died last Friday aged 76, following a battle with throat cancer.

Family mourners included brother Terry Willese, son Michael Willesee & wife Ali Langdon, ex wife Gordana Poljak and the couple’s son Rok.

In attendance were industry names including Tracy Grimshaw, George Negus, Peter Meakin, David Leckie, Melissa Doyle, Richard Wilkins,

Terry Willesee, said: He will be much missed. He was a great brother who always tried to give me a leg up. He was so kind.”

Peter Meakin said, It’s a very sad day for a hell of a lot of people.

“He was very much a one off. He was also very brave, no one could intimidate him not even Kerry Packer.”

This is the eulogy by son Michael Willesee, as published by the Brisbane Times:

Firstly, thank you all for coming. Our family really appreciates your support …
Dad was born in 1942 to Don Willesee, a postal clerk who would become a Senator and Australia’s Foreign Minister, and Gwendoline Clarke, the piano-playing daughter of the local publican.
But the joy of his birth was short-lived.

Baby Michael was not taking milk and it quickly became clear there was a serious problem. Doctors diagnosed pyloric stenosis, and gently told Gwen it was time to take her baby home to die. Faced with losing his son, Don took Michael into the church and held him above the altar, making a promise to God, “I give my son to you,” he said “But first, give him back to me.” That’s a true story.

Now, I don’t need to tell you all of what happened next … but it was another 76 mostly extraordinary years of life.

Dad was so well known to so many, but not many really knew him well.

On behalf of my siblings: Katie, Amy, Josh, Jo, and Rok… I’m going to try to give you a sense of Dad as we knew him … of who he was to us.

He was introverted, thoughtful, tender, faultlessly loyal and full of contradictions. Dad was a constant in the living rooms of so many Australians … but he was an intensely private person. Sharing his life so publicly didn’t come easily to him.

He was shy, solitary even, and more often than not, preferred to be in his own company. But he also loved an audience. He loved telling stories: usually about himself. He particularly loved the stories that involved international trouble spots, car chases and narrow escapes. Like Tripoli 1979 … Gaddafi’s henchmen running Mike and the crew down, only for the good guys to make it to the airport, split up and slip through the net.

Or the time in Bogota, 1983 – I think, Pablo Escobar’s thugs and a gang of corrupt cops on their tail. ”Let’s not go back to the hotel – leave our gear – we’ve got to get out of here,” Mike said. ”Straight to the airport”. When they were paged over the PA, Mike was casually observing their pursuers from the terminal’s upper deck … once again – the good guys got away.

We grew up on this stuff, and loved it. These were our bed-time stories.

One story he didn’t tell that often was the time he didn’t escape the cops – in Sydney.

October 19, 1973. The night before the Sydney Opera House opened.

Dad and Carol decided to crack a bottle of champagne on the Opera House steps, from their small boat, to christen the building themselves. (Not the first bottle they’d cracked that night). They didn’t even get close, and they didn’t get away.

Lucky he was famous.

We have always had to share dad – even today – he is public property. He and our mothers worked really hard to protect us from that as kids, and I think they did a really good job.

We are in no doubt that we were the most important thing in his life.

Whether he meant to or not, Dad shaped our hearts and minds. He was loving, he was patient, and overwhelmingly accepting of our choices; he let us make our mistakes and then helped us fix them.
But he also demanded effort and excellence, and could be uncompromising.

He taught us so many things.

He taught us to follow our passions – as he followed his passions. Journalism – which I think he was born to do.

His interviewing is the stuff of legend, as it should be. His skill in story-telling is also celebrated by those in the industry, particularly in documentaries.

Some of the great producers and directors who’ve worked with Dad talk about his ability to cut to the heart of the story in a way so simple, obvious and right – that no one else saw it.

He also wrote with a beautiful economy and simplicity of language.

And then of course, there was the famous Willesee pause ….

It probably goes without saying, but he possessed an incredible intellect. I once called him from university when I was having problems with an economics paper on Australia’s post-WWII trade policies. Three-thousand words came off the top of his head and I got 19/20. (Just so you know, he was not a fan of Menzies’ protectionist stance.)

Amy tells a similar story for a school assignment on Fred Hollows and Pat O’Shane. Another 19/20 on the spot and off the top of his head.

Josh unfortunately scored 11/20 on a paper about the sugar industry in Bundaberg, the teacher complaining she didn’t really understand it. I guess you can’t please everyone all the time.

Horse racing was, of course, another passion … where he was better at breeding than punting.

Through the ’80s he was a huge figure – in a time of huge racing figures – and he was an innovator, being among the first to tap the South American bloodlines. While Rubiton’s 1987 Cox Plate might have been his most successful day racing, his best day was thanks to a horse named Grillita, newly off the boat from Argentina.

This filly could really run, and no one knew it but Dad and his trainer. Starting at 20-to-1 on a Wednesday at Randwick, Dad tipped essentially everyone on Hamilton Island, where he was on holiday. Grillita got up and the Hamilton Island TAB was decimated.

It’s hard to adequately frame just how important the Sydney Swans were to Dad, and to our whole family. Dad played reserves for South Melbourne in the early ’60s. Back then he was more a footballer than a journalist (at least he thought he was).

He never played a game in the seniors, and he must have told me a thousand times how he was an emergency three times, meaning not just a reserve, but if someone failed to overcome an injury he was straight in the starting side.

Even as a teenager, I was aware of how ridiculous it was for someone so famous, so successful, so imperious in so many fields to be making sure I understood what being an emergency meant – and how close he came.

I suspect he would have traded off much of his success – possibly even one of his kids (most likely me) – for just one game in the seniors.

I often wondered if he bought the Swans just so he could make a comeback. Seriously, outside of family, I think the Swans are his greatest legacy. Had it not been for Dad, Peter Weinert and a small group of true believers, the Sydney Swans would not exist.

The pride I feel when I walk in to the SGC on a Sunday afternoon and see families, groups of friends, so many people coming together in their red and white… all so happy … and that I know Dad played a big role in that, is enormous. It has been one of our happiest family places.

I think one of Dad’s best moments was when Leo Barry took that mark in 2005 and the Swans won the flag. It meant so much.

It would be wrong for me not to mention Dad’s return to the Church over the last few decades. Much has been made of the role of his plane crash in his return to the faith but, always the storyteller, this was really just a plot twist in Dad’s journey.

His re-acquaintance with God was actually a far longer, more complex and carefully trodden path.
It was one he would share with us, but never impose on us.
If we were ‘‘good people’’, he would say, that was enough. And he meant it. Faith and family were everything.

So, back to what he taught us. He taught us to value honesty and above all to be honest. He set our moral compasses. He taught us important things like how to bodysurf, and how to cook a BBQ for a big family get-together. He taught us the importance of family getting together.

He didn’t teach us unimportant stuff, like how to check the oil in a car, or how to start a lawnmower. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him mow a lawn, scoop leaves out of a pool, or even change a light globe. He wasn’t very practical around the house.

My sister Jo caught him in the kitchen one morning trying to make a fresh juice – jamming a banana and a piece of rock melon into a coffee percolator. He paid her $50 to not tell anyone that story. Amy caught him cutting what he thought was a block of cheese, but was actually a packet of individually wrapped cheese slices.

He took Josh out on the harbour for the New Year’s Eve fireworks in a 12-foot dingy, navigating only by torchlight. They were very lucky to survive that one.

And I helped him try to fix the video recorder with a carving knife and a set of barbecue tongs. We got a new video recorder. We knew he was very good at some things, not everything.

And the things he was very good at, he never much talked about.

For a man who won Walkleys, Logies, a Cox Plate, a New York Film Festival medal, and was bestowed the honour of an Order of Australia, it’s telling that the only accolade on display at home in the last few years of his life was his ‘‘World’s Best Pa’’ coffee mug – awarded by his grandson Lucas – which meant so much more.

Dad also taught us, through his actions more than anything, how to look after one another. He had a tender heart and an incredible generosity towards anyone in need.

When his personal assistant of 40 years Susan Kane had cancer, he rang her every day to see how she was and organised for someone to do the washing and cleaning so that her girls needn’t worry about it.

We only learnt after his death that he’d done this sort of thing for a lot of people. One story emerged of a former staff member who’d been diagnosed with MS – even after she left work he kept her on the payroll for the rest of her life.

Knowing that Dad had such kindness provided us with an amazing safety net. No matter what else went down, we always knew his love and support was there to catch us. A couple of years ago our brother Josh was dealing with a pretty significant life-changing event, and was uncertain how Dad might react… Dad was immediately and completely embracing with the words ”Love you my boy’’.

When Australian Story was filming its recent episode on Dad, he was going through radiation treatment and very unwell. The planned family barbecue scene was due to be filmed in Berry, two hours down the coast. Just getting to Berry required an enormous effort from Dad, and we were all conscious how much it would take out of him.

Before he arrived though (it being such an emotional time) we had a disagreement with the producer, resulting in Amy’s husband Mark cancelling the shoot… using language not fit for a cathedral. It was pretty tense.

When Dad turned up, shaky and pale, having endured the discomfort of the car trip, we had to break the news to him that he’d travelled all that way for nothing. For once there was no Willesee pause. Dad simply responded, ‘‘Good. I just wish I’d been here to see it.”

He gave Amy and Jo one of his strong, barrel-chested cuddles and said, ‘’Isn’t it good to be on a team where you know everyone has your back.’’

And that is one of Dad’s greatest enduring gifts to us.

Dad was not without his flaws. No one is. His battle with alcohol was well-known, but was more serious than most knew. It stole a great deal of our father from us.

But none of that matters any more.

It is now up to each of us how we remember Dad. I’m going to remember him as he was at his best… and when Dad was at his best, he was the best.

Source: Daily Telegraph