Mum's ashes taken to Wick in Vegimite jar – an Australian's last tribute for WWII veteran
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An Australian man shared the story of repatriating his mother's remains to Wick and how he recently named his yacht after her home street of Willowbank.
Jean Collie Rosie Lilley (nee McLeod) was born on January 22, 1920 and lived at 1 Willowbank in Wick – a name which her son, John Lilley, has honoured by recently naming his new boat 'Willowbank'.
John said: "Having the sea in my blood – my great grandfather was a North Sea fisherman out of Wick – my mother reminded me that anyone born in that part of the world had Viking blood. I have always had a love for the sea and mucking around in boats."
He said that his mother served as a decoder for the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War and shared a photograph of her in uniform.
"My mother was born in Wick and spent the first 12 years of her life there before emigrating to Australia to join her mother [Helen Jane McLeod] who had moved to Australia many years prior to get established and set up a business in Toorak Village, a suburb of Melbourne. She opened a cake shop which she called 'The Willowbank Cake Shop'.
"When it came time to give our lovely new boat a name we decided to carry on the tradition and named her 'Willowbank'. Her home port is at the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club on the beautiful Pittwater north of Sydney, not far from Scotland Island."
John said that he and his wife had, for many years, dreamt of purchasing a new boat, a Jeanneau 349, and talked of his delight at honouring his mother's home town by naming it after the street where she originally lived before emigrating. The couple retired in 2013 and after his mum passed away on June 19, 2014, he travelled to Europe to visit Spain, France, Italy before hopping over the channel to the UK.
"We made it to Wick but unfortunately we only spent one day there. My brother and I sprinkled Mum's ashes in Wick at the riverside path near a little bridge. She was transported in a used Vegemite jar – now you can't get more Australian than that!"
