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transpired she was neither Irene nor a Chapman. It was all too much for him. Ethel took Len
north to the Atherton Tableland to recuperate, and John took over the business, assisted by
Alma. Then Lloyd Wilson died of a heart attack on 15 December; he was 54. Len and Ethel
did not attend Lloyd's funeral, and remained up north until just before Christmas. The sale of the
three groceries was finalised on his return.
John remained in Ayr for a year before going south to complete his National Service. He moved
permanently into Alma's house, siding himself with 'those bloody Honeycombes' as Zoe referred
to her husband's relations. She was now taking in lodgers to supplement her income.
Although Len had rid himself of much associated with his mother, he still sought to elevate her
memory and to commemorate her life with something more socially significant than a gravestone
- to this day the only one in the Ayr cemetery that bears the Honeycombe name. It says: 'In
loving memory of Irene Mary Esther Honeycombe, beloved mother of Rene, Alma, Bill and
Len... Always remembered.'
Without discussing the matter with Alma, and thereby upsetting her for a while, Len paid for a
new marble-topped altar made of brick to be installed in the rebuilt All Saints War Memorial
Church. The raising of funds for the rebuilding of the Anglican church, the third on the site, had
begun in 1949, and it was designated a war memorial as donations were consequently tax
deductible; the
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old church became the parish hall. The new church, and the altar, were dedicated on 25
September 1955 by the Bishop of North Queensland, Bishop Shevill; young Lloyd, aged 11,
was the Bishop's cassock boy and server. The altar was remodelled and moved forward in
1974.
After Len's death, in 1973, his widow Ethel commissioned a spectacular mosaic, 15 feet high,
as his memorial. Placed on the eastern wall behind the altar, the huge oblong mosaic, made by
an Atherton craftsman, Stan Moses was made up of over 100,000 chips coloured red, white,
silver and gold. It depicted the risen Christ surrounded by angels' wings. The mosaic was
dedicated by a later Bishop of North Queensland, the Rt Rev John Lewis, in 1976.
But such interior memorials are virtually unregarded compared with the large signs that now
crown several premises in Townsville and Ayr. For Esther's grandson, John Honeycombe, built
wisely and well on her and Len's achievements, and the family name is not only known
throughout the Burdekin but blazoned over the several million-dollar businesses dealing in real
estate, used cars, and farm machinery, and owned and managed by the Honeycombes today.
And yet, as with others who came to Australia from other lands, in other times, who made their
mark and helped to shape their new homeland in many ways, it is the official recognition of
achievements that pleases most - and may endure - the bestowing of a name on a place, a farm,
a town, a city, a mountain, a river, a piece of land however great or small. Batman, Collins,
Murray, Eyre, Flinders, Wickham, Bass, Gibson, Leichhardt, Sturt: these names - and many
more - belonged to men who came and saw and conquered and, in great or modest measure,
are commemorated throughout Australia today.
You will need a magnifying glass and a detailed map of Ayr to find a place called Honeycombe.
But there it is, on Rossiter's Hill, a little road on the edge of the land that Len once owned. The
Shire Council in the 1970s, recognising the part that the Honeycombe family had played in the
prosperous development of Ayr, named this road Honeycombe Street.
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