William Trewin: 'Rhoda Mountjoy is my niece. She has been staying with me on a visit for about three weeks

Sharyn and Danielle, we see these truths in your grief and the faith and love that is within you... and in Chris, in how he lived, and how he died...

'Chris could be cool and arrogant because he knew that he was good at the things he did... And yet Chris was just a big kid, rolling and tumbling in mock fights with his little sister, Danielle. Chris had that competitive spirit. Whatever he was in, it was full on. There was a sense in which he had no time for this illness. He was in control of what would happen, and when. And with his family's encouragement, he lived right up to his limits. Although Chris was born in Mortlake, he was really a Healesville person. All the little kids at the swimming club would say to Beth: "We wish Chris was here, because then Healesville would win." In Year 7 he swam free-style faster than the Open grade. And to watch him swim was a sheer delight, such was his grace and speed.

'He spent a lot of his time keeping up with Ross and Sharyn: anything they could do, he could do also. With Ross he had someone to compete with and, if possible, to get the better of - someone who shared his love of music, who could extend his ability in maths and all things digital, and someone just to kick a footy around with. Chris could seem quite reserved. He didn't wear his heart on his sleeve. But he loved to have a gossip session with Sharyn about parties, and who was going around with who. Not that it was heart-to-heart stuff. Chris would give Sharyn a few bumps to remind her that she was his sister. And with Danielle the reserve completely fell away, and Chris was a kid again, larking around with her.

'With younger children Chris had a kind of mock gruffness and a way with him that meant he was adored. He'd muck around and they'd do anything to get noticed. I am not going to list his achievements. It is enough to say that you couldn't help being proud of him. The presence here, today, of his swimming coaches and his peers speaks volumes. It was important to Chris that he was able, quite recently, to go to Queensland and to the competition in Tasmania.

'Chris's courage never faltered. But there were lots of special things that gave him a lift when his energy was low - Aaron walking with Chris in the 400 metre trials when Chris could no longer run - going to Def Leopard with Ross -and another highlight, Chris partnering Jane in this year's Debutante Ball, as much a thrill for him as it was for Jane and all their friends. Then there was the downhill skiing with the Challenge Cancer support group from the Royal Children's Hospital - taking the MR2 for a spin with Julian - being part of a Family Thanksgiving just last Thursday - and for all these things our hearts are full of gladness.

'Beth and Alan, you have given Chris life, and you have loved him and encouraged him in a way that enabled him to live the whole of his life to the full. And he in his own unique way has loved you and shared his life with you. Our hearts go out to you."

Alan Honeycombe then stood before the congregation and spoke of his son, his voice faltering and fading now and then, as he fought against his tears.

He said: 'I've spoken here on many occasions. But this is the only time I've had 18 months to prepare what I wanted to say. And it's been my most difficult assignment.

'Thank you for sharing today with us, and for your support, cards, food and love. Special thanks to those of you who have travelled long distances, or arranged busy schedules to enable you to be here. We apologize in advance for not being able to greet all of you before we leave this place, but we will catch up with you...

'If we could write the scripts of our own lives, they would almost certainly be different from the way they have turned out, based on our understanding of the present. As Christians, we put our lives in the hands of the God who knows the future, trusting that, in the words of St Paul, "to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good."

'People ask me: "Aren't you angry at God?" My understanding is that our God does not cause pain and suffering. And I have ample evidence that he is with us through these trying times, suffering with us. If there is anything that makes me angry about death, it is the people who, when told that Christ died for them, simply shrug their shoulders, turn away and say: "I don't care."

'Chris never expressed to us that he might be dying - probably to protect us from the pain of such a thought; or maybe a denial that death has anything to do with 16-year-olds. The expectation was always of improvement - perhaps the best way of coping with a life-threatening disease. If you read through What Cancer Can't Do on the back page of the Order of Service, you will read: "Our greatest enemy is not disease, but despair." Thank God, Chris never despaired. He was an inspiration to us all, in the positive and determined way he approached his illness.

'In his 16 and a half years, he achieved more than most of us would in a lifetime. The number of people here today bears testament to that. It's a source of comfort to focus on the accomplishments and the good times. It's only now that some stories from the past are coming to light. I found the way in which he began his friendship with his best friend, Aaron, to be quite interesting.

'Having come from different primary schools, they did not know each other when they both hit High School. At the Year 7 camp at Phillip Island, Chris and Aaron were with a group of other students who visited the penguins. Apparently Chris was fascinated by these enchanting birds and thought it would be a good idea to take one home. When he thought nobody was looking, he jumped the fence, grabbed a penguin and stuffed it inside his coat. Aaron saw what he was up to and thought to himself: "I like his style!" That's where a wonderful friendship started. Chris was not one to let regulations get in the way of a challenge or a good time. When Ross had his 21 st birthday at home last year, Chris insisted that he and Aaron should be in charge of the bar for the night. I'm sure that that's where the pair of them learned the meaning of "quality control", judging by their appearance by the end of the night.

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'His determination had to be experienced to be appreciated. He had the younger swimmers at the swimming club around his little finger. They idolized him. On a number of occasions he filled in as coach. I'm sure that if he had asked those 9-year-olds to swim two laps of the pool, underwater, without stopping, they would have done it, without question. I remember swimming in the lane next to him one day last year, thinking to myself: "Gee, I must finally be improving. I'm almost keeping up with him." It wasn't until I got to the other end of the pool that I realized that while I was going flat out, he was swimming without using his arms!

'At home, if I asked Chris to do something he enjoyed, or saw as a challenge, you always had to add the rider - "But don't overdo it." If I asked him to fill the woodbox, it was a good bet that I'd return 15 minutes later to find wood half way to the ceiling.

'Chris no longer has to prove himself to anybody. In many aspects of his life, he's shown us his ability to set ambitious goals and go about achieving them with fierce determination. The slogan on the bottom of his Reebok sports bag says it all: "Life is short. Play hard."

'He's taught us all so much. You'll always be an immense source of inspiration for us, Chris. Good-bye for now.'

After Alan's words, Aaron and Elissa spoke of their love for Chris, and moved everyone, again, to tears.

Chris Honeycombe, aged 16, was buried later that day at the Healesville Lawn Cemetery. Masses of flowers filled the Honeycombes' home and accompanied his coffin to the grave. It was warm and sunny; the tall trees threw shadows that reached out to where Chris lay and would lie, and the dark mountains seemed far away.

Before long the bronze plaque at the head of the grave would bear the legend: 'A courageous champion for 1614 years - Life is short, play hard.'

In February 1992, when he was in remission, Chris told a female reporter from the local paper Mountain Views: 'It's pretty hard to keep a secret at school, and I think most people were pretty shocked... Very few asked me how I was going. They mostly asked my best friends, and often the question was whether or not I was going to die... Chemotherapy was pretty tough. It drains your energy, and I found it very hard to do the things I used to do... Others were worse off than me. In the hospital one of the boys in my ward had his leg amputated and another a total hip replacement. A third died a week after I left... You can read about it, talk about it, hear about it. But no one really knows what it's like until they have been there.'

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Tomorrow! Why, tomorrow I may be

Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years...

Lo, some we loved, the loveliest and best

That time and fate of all their vintage pressed

Have drunk their cup a round or two before

And one by one crept silently to rest...

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the dust descend...

One thing is certain, and the rest is lies;

The flower that once hath blown for ever dies...

How time is slipping underneath our feet:

Unborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday,

Why fret about them if today be sweet...

Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days,

Where destiny, with men for pieces, plays;

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays...

The moving finger writes; and having writ

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it...

And that inverted bowl we call the sky,

Whereunder crawling, cooped we live and die -

Lift not thy hands to it for help; for it

Rolls impotently on, as thou and I.

Omar Khayyam : Edward Fitzgerald

Epilogue

In 1979 the Australian government launched a campaign to promote participation in sporting and recreational activities. The slogan for the campaign was: Life. Be in it. Such could be the motto of this book - a maxim that Chris Honeycombe, and Bill Clemence, would surely have endorsed.

Other messages emerge from this story, from the passing, flickering images of other people's lives. You see how hard work gives people a mental as well as a physical strength, and how much in the way of poverty and tough circumstances can be endured without debasement and despair. You see the supportive worth of family ties, the benefits of travel, a full education, and a safe haven at home. You see how change, and chance, have the most major effect on everyone, and that change especially, whether caused by birth, marriage or death, or by a change of occupation or domicile, can be a positive force, an advancement for the good.

What strikes me most about this story of passing generations is that there would be no story were it not for procreation and creation. Sons are needed to carry on the family name, and pens are needed to tell their story. If there were neither, we would cease to exist.

If records had not been kept - and it is the triumph of bureaucracy that they were, that any information was ever recorded and remains for us to find -and if I had not unearthed William the stonemason, his wife and children, no one now would have known about them - it would have been as if they had never lived. They were unknown until now to all the Honeycombes alive today, their names, their existence, obliterated by the passage of time. And within four generations we ourselves will be forgotten, unless we have sons to perpetuate our kind and name, or create something special, whether a building, a bridge, a book, or become someone special, or discover something new.

In reviving these family connections we provide ourselves with a kind of immortality, perhaps the only immortality there is. For by resurrecting the lives of those who have gone before, by recording them as a family tree, we acquire a continuity that reaches back through time, over hundreds of years. And it reaches forwards too, if the process is maintained. By connecting past lives with present ones, we provide them with an abiding history and ourselves with a heritage.

But who of all the descendants of William the stonemason, who came to Australia in 1850, will pass on the name and the knowledge, the genetic inheritance, of those who have gone before?

As some lines have by now died out, the male descent can only continue in Australia through the sons of Alan and John and Lloyd.

Lloyd's two sons, Andrew and Paul, have so far produced only daughters; they may have no more offspring or any sons of their own. John's three boys,

494

And then there is Warren Honeycombe in South Africa, who married Amy de Villiers in February 1995. They live in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, and have a son, Ryan, born in 1996. Through them the South African branch of the Honeycombes may well continue and thrive.

But the main line of descent through seven generations - from William to Richard, to Richard, to Richard Thomas, to Richard Arthur, and so to Alan Richard - lies with Alan's eldest son, Ross Honeyoombe. Ross is 26 in December 1996. If he marries, and if he has sons, the main line is secure, for a while. If he has no male heirs and that line ends with him, the mantle of primogeniture winds back through the family tree and down again, to David, Peter and Rob.

Who will take it on from there? What will happen next? It is a never-ending story - that someone else will have to tell.

amily Trees

Acknowledgements

Many people have helped along the way in the long preparation and writing of this book, and there are many, like librarians, local people, registrars, newspaper reporters, other historians and diligent clerks long gone, whose names I never noted or are now unknown. I owe them much. But not a few, including family members, family friends and other writers and authors, are named within the text. My thanks to them.

Of the Honeyoombes, I owe a particular debt of thanks to Cyril in Johannesburg, to John Honeycombe and Ernie Lawless in Durban; to Arthur and Laurel Honeycombe in Melbourne, and to Aunt Lil; and in Queensland to Mabel Kettle, Margaret Kelly, Bob Honeycombe, Alma and Ethel and Lloyd, and above all to John Honeycombe of Ayr. Without all of them this book could not have been written.

My gratitude also to Danelie Lowry, who typed the complicated manuscript with its masses of emendations and additions; and to two genealogical experts, Ettie Pullman in Australia and Don Steel in the UK, who dug out some of the more deeply buried and elusive facts.

If I have got something wrong, the error is only mine; if any errors can be corrected, let me know. And if anyone can add any information to the tales and lives herein, or clear up any mysteries, again let me know. Nothing can ever be fully known. And no one. But we can question, search and try to get it right.

Gordon Honeycombe - August 1996

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