Hundreds of mourners are at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney this morning to commemorate the life of Gary O’Callaghan, who passed away earlier this month.
2GB’s Ray Hadley and TalkingLifestyle’s Tim Webster took time off air to be at the memorial with many members of the public.
Alan Jones, Russell Tate, Mark Collier and others were also in attendance to remember the great Sydney breakfast announcer.
Ray Hadley, Steve Liebmann and Patrick Condon all contributed words of rememberance.
Eulogising their dad, the family said:
…He embarrassed us, too. Deliberately of course. The picture of Dad walking along the beach in long white socks and white covered shoes – because he didn’t like sand between his toes – still makes us shudder.
Dad wanted to be a fireman, a barrister, a police officer, a train driver, an airline captain, an ocean liner captain, a music conductor, a jockey. In fact, he first decided he wanted to be a jockey when he was sitting on that same Bondi tram line as his mother had been decades earlier.
Dad was heading home from Waverley College aged about 10, and looked out the window as a huge funeral procession passed. It was for a famous rider who had died in a fall at Randwick the previous week.
That’s when I decided to be a jockey because that’s how I want to go out of this world, he would often tell us. And thanks to his wonderful friends in the NSW Police Force, that is how Dad is taking his final bow today.
See the full eulogy here.
