William Cox

This is the last posting about my father William Cox.  In 1966 my parents decided to emigrate to Australia, probably not the best decision when they were both in their 40s.  My father arranged a job there through the people he worked for here in the uk.

The two photos below were taken at a farewell party their friends in England gave for them before they left.

                               

 They left England on St Patrick's Day 17th March 1967 and arrived in Perth Western Australia about 6 weeks later. 

The photo below was taken on the ship. They had quite an eventful journey as there was trouble in the middle east at that time and they were on the last ship to sail through the Suez Canal before it was closed.  They could hear bombs going off when they stopped in Aden.  

A few months after my parents went to Australia my dad's sister Nora and her husband Harry decided to go too and their daughter Valerie and her family went with them.  This is Mum and Dad with Valerie and her two daughters at Perth Zoo.

Sadly, not long after starting his job there, Bill broke both his heels jumping down off a packing case and was off work for 4 months.  Later the following year he was taken ill with headaches and vomiting and it was thought that he had a brain tumour.  It turned out to be a large aneurism in one of the blood vessels in his brain which the surgeon attempted to tie off but it was too large to tie off completely. The following year, November 1969 Bill had another bleed from the aneurism and passed away on 19th November at the age of 49.  I hadn't seen him since they left over two years earlier but was able to go for his funeral as mum sent me the money.

This is the last picture I have of him which was taken after he had been ill for quite a while.  I was so shocked to see how grey he had become and how much weight he had lost.  I will always miss him and my children missed out on having a wonderful grandfather.  None of them were born at that time so he never saw them.