Memories of my Dad: Lindsay David Hope

26/06/1946 – 04/05/2025

The following is a speech I gave at Dad’s private family funeral at home on Monday 12 May 2025.

I could tell you that Lindsay David Hope was born in Sydney in 1946. I could tell you that he grew up on the Blue Mountains—and that he met Mum at a boarding house in Launceston. I could tell you that he worked as a land surveyor for many years. I could also tell you that he was an environmentalist and did some incredible things for the natural world during his life: such as saving Alex Forest (in Alexandra Headland) and campaigning to restore Lake Pedder in Tasmania. I could probably talk about all the details of his life and various achievements for hours. But—all of us—we already know these things about him. And, to me, a list of facts and dates, alone, can’t always get to the heart of who a person was.

So, instead, here are a few memories I have of Dad that will stay with me forever.

He was the kind of man who would hug me every time I came home from Brisbane or interstate. He would look at my facial hair with keen interest and ask if I was growing a beard—something that adorned his face for many years. I’m still not sure if he liked the idea of me growing a beard or whether he thought I looked scruffy. Either way, he noticed.

He was the kind of man whose face lit up when he saw his grandchildren after a time apart—picking them up and holding them close.

He was the kind of man who loved listening to music and let it touch his heart. He wasn’t afraid to be emotional when he felt the full weight of a song.

He was the kind of man who, along with Mum, would drive down to Brisbane and unearth an entire overgrown garden bed full of weeds at one of my share houses—replacing it with a thriving vegetable and herb patch—years after I’d officially moved out of home.

He was the kind of man who would show up with his car and trailer to help me move all my possessions from one share house to the next. Or fly interstate to help me unpack boxes and assemble furniture for weeks whenever I decided to upend my life and move to a new city.

He was the kind of man who cared deeply about his children. So deeply, that he would spend a lot of time worrying about us and how we might be coping with our latest life misadventure or misfortune. I often joked that there was a rotating roster of his three children in order of how worried he was about each of us at any given time. And while it was lovely to know that he cared so much, sometimes it was nice to not be at the top of the list for too long. So thank you Georgie and Ray for helping me out there.

He was the kind of man who took a genuine interest in what I did with my life. In my adventurous 20s, sometimes that meant he wished I would get a real job instead of playing in rock bands and working in night clubs. But even when I didn’t follow his advice, he stood by me. He would drive down from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane to watch all my big shows with Iron On and Disco Nap. He would buy our CDs and listen to them intently, analysing each song before asking me what each was about.

Sometimes I did strange and unusual things in my life that probably baffled him but, in the end, all he wanted was for me to be happy—whatever that looked like, and whatever that meant to me. I always felt like he was a great supporter of my music and my creative pursuits, even when they kept me flirting with the poverty line for many years. It was comforting to know that whatever I did, I always had him in my corner, cheering me on.

After all, my love of music came from Dad. Specifically, from family trips to Fraser Island when he would play his guitar and mouthorgan and sing folk songs by the campfire light, as the rest of us sat in a circle, singing along while we gazed into the flames. That was when I first felt the deep, emotive power of music.

He was also a man of great humour. I say ‘great’, because it was similar to mine. So, naturally, I appreciated it. We both liked to playfully poke fun at the absurdity of life and the world in general. He also taught me how powerful humour can be. Of all the pieces of advice he ever gave me, one that stuck with me, and has remained front and centre in my mind ever since, was about humour.

I was a teenager, and we were driving around Alexandra Headland in the car. He was telling me a story that was both funny and sad—and once he’d finished, he turned to me and said, with a knowing sigh, “Sometimes you’ve got to laugh, or you’ll cry”. It sounded so simple. But to me it was profound. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to ever cry. He just understood that in some moments, laughter was the only other force on this earth as powerful, or more powerful, than sadness, and that I could use it to my advantage. Even if that meant laughing at myself—in fact, sometimes that was the most powerful. He knew that humour could provide relief from the pain of life; that it could free me. And it’s something that I’ve enacted ever since.

My favourite story about Dad’s playful sense of humour is one that we all know well, but bears repeating here, because I know you are listening, Dad. And I know it’s one of your favourites too.

Dad was on a Zoom call with various members of the Restore Lake Pedder campaign, including environmental and political luminaries like Bob Brown and Christine Milne. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss potential new ways to raise money for the cause. At a certain juncture, a list of new members’ names was read out. And one of the new members’ names was ‘Robin Banks’. Upon hearing this, Dad piped up and said something like, “Well! I think Robin Banks could definitely help out with fundraising”. The joke was met with stunned silence; probably because everyone on the call was so busy being serious that they didn’t even realise a joke had been made. I still remember him recounting this story to me: he was laughing so hard that his eyes started to water. And I’d never been prouder of him.

Dad, like the John Denver song, it’s so hard to say ‘Goodbye Again’. I feel like I’ve said goodbye to you about 10 times during these past 11 months. But none of them have really felt final. Saying goodbye now doesn’t even feel final. I suppose this is because—if I really think about it—there’s no such thing as a final goodbye, is there?

Today we might be saying goodbye to your body and your physical presence, but the ball of energy that animated your body, that we called ‘Lindsay’, or ‘Dad’, or ‘Poppa’, can never die. It is eternal. I genuinely believe that your essence is up there looking down on us—and that you are now in a place of pure love and peace. Last October you said to me, “Soon I will be going to a place of great rest and peace”. That sounded pretty amazing to me—and I felt it in my soul.    

I will always miss your physical presence, Dad. We all will. But I know that I won’t have to look too far to find you and to feel your presence again. You’ll be there, in every John Denver song I ever hear; you’ll be there, in the silence that consumes me when I see a spectacular sunset, or the view from the top of a mountain; you’ll be there, whenever I remember Robin Banks; and you’ll be there whenever I look to the sky and put my hand over my heart. Because there you will live on for eternity.

I’ll see you soon, Dad. But just not too soon, okay? All my love, your son, Ross.