FOR Taylors Lakes couple Ray and Betty Smith, Australia Day was a day of recognition and reunion.
Last Friday, Australia Day, 83-year-old Mr Smith returned home from a two-week stay in hospital, where he had been receiving physiotherapy treatment for his weakening legs, to quietly celebrate his inclusion in this year’s Australia Day honours list.
This year Mr Smith was honoured with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his decades of service to the community, particularly his efforts with war veterans and their families.
At his home in the Lakes Retirement Village, where he and his wife have lived since 2000, Mr Smith was pleased to be back at home, but humbled by the official recognition bestowed on him.
“I’m very thrilled. This is a terrific accolade for me because even though I did a lot of work and enjoyed every minute of it, you don’t expect anything like this,” he said.
He had served as a surveyor during World War II, later joining the Institute of Surveyors Victoria in the late 1940s, where he quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the institute’s senior members.
From 1979 until his retirement in 2006, Mr Smith was the institute’s honorary secretary, and responsible for not only keeping the group alive, but helping it to thrive.
“It flourished because we found members of the organisation (all over Australia),” he said. “I was able to dig up a lot of these fellows from interstate.”
A keen cricketer, he continued to be involved with the game as a senior umpire in the Essendon Broadmeadows Keilor Cricket Association until 2002.
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As for his inclusion in this year’s Australia Day honours list, the Smiths have been keeping a lid on it, although they don’t expect the charade to last much longer.
“We haven’t told anybody, I mean we’re not the type to push ourselves or anything,” Mrs Smith, 78, said.
Married 58 years this April, the Smiths were among the first residents to move into the retirement village, opposite Watergardens Town Centre, and have become an integral part of the village’s growth: they featuring on a promotional billboard for the village back when it first opened.
It means not much about Ray and Betty Smith can be kept a secret for too long.
“It’ll probably get around the village,” said Mrs Smith. “By the time we go down to get a drink tonight probably everyone will know. News travels very fast in this village.”
