From Pamela Eastick-Watts

I am the second youngest of the fourteen Grandchildren of Sir Thomas & Lady Ruby Eastick. I was born in 1968 so a lot of my cousins Phil, Robin, Mal etc. were much older than me. Our very beautiful Nana & Grandpa who both came from very big families were so family orientated & loved their 5 boys & 14 grandchildren so much. They would ring each & every one of us on every Birthday & sing Happy Birthday wherever we were & Grandpa has this special bit he added at the end that I’ve never heard before or since but I think it had something to do with their cat Tiger. Any of my siblings or cousins will know what I mean. My memories of Phil, Mal, Michael and Robin include when I went to any big Eastick event, every Christmas, Grandpa’s Birthday 3rd May, Mother’s Day, Nana’s Birthday 31st August & Fathers Day. They were non negotiable we all knew on those days we were at Nana & Grandpa’s no matter what. Everybody brought something to eat, that was our normal. I used to look at Phil, Mal, Rob & Michael with their typical long hair, 70’s suede fringed clothes & flared jeans and think they were so so cool & they were. When Mal & Stars made it on to countdown which every kid in the 70’s in Australia watched religiously, we were beside ourselves. Phil & Michael went to Sydney & Melbourne as roadies & worked with some amazing Australian bands. I believe it was the Angels that took Phil to the US. To this day they are one of my very very favourite bands & the death of Doc Neeson still saddens me so much. I listen to their music & so much 70’s music. I remember going to stay at Auntie Dawn’s many times when I was little. My brother Graham & I walked from Willaston to Gawler one day. On our way back this cool dude in his flares & denim jacket was walking in front of us. I said to Graham I’m almost 100% sure that’s my cousin Phil but I don’t want to call out in case I’m wrong & make a fool out of myself! Sure enough when we got back to Auntie Dawn & Uncle Bruce’s there was cool dude Phil looking very similar to the picture above & very very similar to the pic we all got of him at his wake at the Gov. Lovely, lovely man. My sister Helen worked with him in IT & they had lunch regularly and him & I worked in the same building on North Tce in the early 2000’s & would bump into each other & chat. Many of my accounting clients in the IT sector knew him & loved him so much. And as you know he & Mal were so very close. More like brothers than cousins. Beautiful memories. xxxxxxx