Page 1131 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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Noel was born on 1 December 1937, and sadly passed away on 25 April this year. Noel joined the New South Wales Fire Brigade in 1963 and later moved to the ACT on a transfer in 1965. Both Ms Cody’s dad, Tim, and my dad, Wayne, worked with Noel. It is that old Canberra thing. My father and Noel found that they had something in common whilst working with the New South Wales Fire Brigade. They attended the same fire while working at two different stations. I will come back to that in a moment.
During his time in the ACT brigade, he was deployed as part of the relief team to Darwin for Cyclone Tracy in 1974. He was promoted to station officer in 1975. In 1975 the ACT formed the ACT Fire Brigade and Noel was appointed to train the first 50 recruits and the next 14 recruit colleges thereafter. Promoted to district officer in 1980, he was appointed as officer in charge of all brigade training. Promoted to superintendent in 1987, he also served as acting fire commissioner.
Noel received a number of awards and accolades, including the Australian Fire Service Medal in 1990 and the Order of Australia Medal, OAM, on Australia Day in 1995. Noel was the president of the Fire Brigade Historical Society of the ACT, a place where retired firefighters spend hours restoring old engines and equipment whilst reminiscing about their firefighting days over tools and enjoying a cuppa together at the kitchen table.
It was at the fire museum that Noel and my father found that they had both attended the Lyceum Theatre fire on Pitt Street in Sydney in February 1964. This was the first fire that my father attended as a probationary firefighter. Noel was one of the firefighters who was trapped in the building after the roof collapsed. My dad, however, was a probationary officer so was not allowed to enter the building. Noel used to have a running joke with my dad that while he was stuck inside waiting to be rescued, my dad was out the front swanning around, taking in the scenery.
He had, by all accounts, a wonderful sense of humour, a widely acknowledged and celebrated trait in his service both as a firefighter and as a referee. As dedicated as he was to the fire brigade, his real passion was rugby league. I am told he would spend every day off work playing and refereeing. He truly lived and breathed the sport. He was the first Canberra-based referee to control a first-grade game in the New South Wales rugby league competition. He was also a pioneer of the video referee system. As a referee coach, he revolutionised local referee ranks, introducing coaching and training while compiling the first-ever training manual, which, importantly, recognised the central role that referees play in a game.
Noel served on the Canberra Region Rugby League Committee from 1995 to 2005 and as chair from 2006 until his retirement in 2018. In his role, he oversaw the rise in female participation in sport across tag and tackle. Noel was inducted into the ACT Sport Hall of Fame in 2019. I was happy to be able to share in that celebration of his contribution over 50 years to rugby league, with his family last year.
Noel was a very dedicated, loyal and passionate person in all aspects of his life. To all the friends and family of Noel—his wife, Lorraine, sister Pamela, children,
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