Ronald John Shanks (28/10/1926-9/2/2009)

Ronald John Shanks, known throughout his life as John, was born on 28th October 1926 to John Richard Shanks and Doris Dina (nee East). Doris was the youngest daughter of George Thomas East, who emigrated from Cambridge, England. He settled first in Victoria, where Doris’s oldest sister, Bertha, married and remained behind when the Easts moved to Temora in New South Wales. Here George Thomas East founded a large sheep station and was so respected a member of the community that he was presented with an engraved commendation when he decided to leave Temora for the newly opened Darling Downs district in Queensland. Doris traveled with the family as a baby and they had many adventures including taking tea with the bushranger, Captain Moonlight. George Thomas East saw the value in artesian water wells and established a sheep property at Warwick, and later a cattle station at Kai Hee, near the NSW and SA borders, and another cattle station at Charters Towers.

John Richard Shanks, known as Dick, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was a burgess of the town and his mother, Dorothea (nee Byron) was a relative of the poet. After World War I, where Dick fought with the grenadiers, he emigrated to Australia. Like many young British men at the time, he found employment managing a sheep station. It was at this time that he met Doris and they eloped, first to Melbourne, and later settled at Manly in Sydney. Dick had a very pleasant singing and speaking voice – he had sung opera in Scotland – and obtained work as a radio announcer with 2GB. Dick worked under the stage name of Dick Hughes – he said that he had had enough jokes about “Shanks’ pony” and the like during his war years.

John Shanks attended Manly Primary School and later was selected for Sydney Boys High. When World War II broke out, Dick volunteered and was a staff sergeant in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese in 1942. He spent the rest of the war as a POW, first at Changi and later on the notorious Burma railway. Doris’ inheritance had been lost during the depression and she was now taking in other people’s washing to support herself and her son. John supplemented this income by diving from Manly wharf for coins thrown by US servicemen. However, he felt that he had to do more for his mother and at the age of 15 left school to be apprenticed as a fitter and turner.

Doris liked to try to supplement her income with an occasional flutter on the horses and it was in this way that she met Jean’s step-father, George Ashby. George had become concerned about the company that Jean was keeping. Jean had been a scholarship girl at SCEGGS and then supported herself through Arts School by working as a strapper at Randwick racecourse. She sang in the chorus in musicals and frequented “beatnik” cafes. When George heard about Doris’ steady and sober son, they decided to arrange a meeting between the two young people.

Jean did not like John at first: She thought that he was a bit “too full of himself”. But he was a good dancer – John was a gold-medal-level ballroom dance teacher – so she consented to go out with him, but not if he was late! John was clearly smitten with Jean and would bicycle from Wollongong, where he was working and living during the week, to take Jean dancing. He knew if he was more than 10 minutes late, she would have made other arrangements. Eventually, John’s steadfastness impressed Jean and she came to love him. They were married at St John’s in Paddington, on a wet 20th January 1951. They were both strong personalities and would have frequent verbal disagreements, but no-one could doubt their attachment to each other throughout their marriage until Jean’s death in 2004.

As only children, both John and Jean were determined to have a large family. John completed both his Engineering and Management Certificates at Sydney Tech’s night school, so that he could support his wife and the children that they hoped to have. Jean had her own thriving business as a commercial artist, “Jevalco”, at the time of her marriage. However, John wanted to support his wife, and so Jean gave up this paid employment and only used her skills for charities, including designing the “Forget Me Not” flower logo for the then Crippled Children’s Association of NSW.

Jean had no difficulty falling pregnant but experienced many miscarriages, She had a total of ten pregnancies to produce the three children that she was determined to have. During her time with the fertility clinic at the Royal Women’s Hospital at Paddington, it was finally discovered that there was a blood type incompatibility: She was Rhesus negative, and John, Rhesus positive. Jean also helped to care for John’s father, Dick, who lived with them after his release from a long convalescence in hospital. At the end of the war, this man of 6 foot three inches weighed less than six stone, and was left functionally blind with only some tunnel vision. Dick lived with the family until his death in 1962.

Jean’s caring role also extended to the orphan animals that John would take home for her to raise. One of these was an orphaned baby wallaby, “ Joey”. John and Jean had also developed an interest in raising budgerigars and taught themselves genetics in the process. They had been pursuing a breeding program and had finally produced a rare yellow-faced grey, when a batch of bad seed wiped out their breeding stock. This coincided with Jean’s first heart attack at the age of only 36 years. She survived this and was determined not to leave her young children, Georgina and Robert, who were still at primary school. Her doctor advised her to give up playing tennis and get a little dog and take it for little walks.

John and Jean went looking for a little dog and fell in love the Golden Retriever - not exactly a little dog! However, Jean was able to take Dhailene for walks, and John soon got Honey, so he could accompany her. These dogs formed the foundation for Palkorra Kennels, established in 1964. Jean recovered sufficiently to finally have the longed-third child, and Kathleen was born in 1965. John and Jean were active in their children’s schools, sports and hobbies, and weekends were a busy time juggling all the activities.

Palkorra was a small kennel, producing several breed champions, obedience and non-slip retriever trial winners, including Ch Palkorra Paladin UD, the first winner of the Joan Sanderson trophy, and Ch Palkorra Octavius UD, who achieved both Best in Show and Winner of Winners in obedience in the same weekend.

John and Jean were very active in the dog world. They were foundation members of the Golden Retriever Club of NSW, with John being interim President prior to the club’s formation and Vice President after. John and Jean had been traveling from Liverpool to Concord to train their dogs, with John becoming an instructor at Sydney All Breeds Dog Training Club. Together with another instructor, Phil Hendy, John and Jean founded Werriwa All Breeds Dog Training Club, which awarded them life memberships and holds an annual Founder’s Day event in their honour. John was also awarded a medal by the City of Liverpool for his contribution to the amenity of the city.

During this time, John had moved up in the business world, first to factory manager, and then sales engineer. His employer recognized John’s creativity and encouraged him to develop several inventions that were first patented and then put into production. On one of his business trips to England, John saw a dog sport event modeled on show-jumping for horses. He brought this idea back to Australia and as a result, Werriwa held the first Agility trial in Australia, with the course designed by John and the adjudication by the Jack Goldstein. John had a long friendship with Jack and Dulcie Goldstein, and assisted with the large exhibition of massed dog obedience in the main area at Sydney Royal Show for many years. John continued to judge both Gundog group and Obedience trials until the death of Jean in 2004.

John was the kind of father who did not want to spoil his children with too much praise, and it was only by hearing from others, that his children came to know just how proud he was of their achievements. However, when tragedy struck he was incredibly supportive. Kath suffered a terrible asthma attack when she was 15 and was in a coma for two weeks. John refused to give up on his daughter and together with Jean nursed her back to health. He encouraged and helped her to learn to walk and talk again to lead a normal, fully functional life. He was also a proud grandfather of Brian, Amanda, Brendan and Jessica, and the pleasure was evident in his face when he held Amanda’s baby, his great-grandchild, Jonathan in his arms. John never recovered after the death of Jean. He had always said that when his time came, he would like to just walk off into the sunset. He is finally with his beloved Jean, who no doubt is saying, “John, you’re late again!”