Gordon Leslie Turkington

Gordon was born on the 26th February, 1934, the first of eight children, to George & Ollie Turkington. His early days were at Pilton at Grandad's dairy farm. He was wheeled down to the dairy in his cot.

His first pony was a little black one that he rode to school when he started at Manapouri at the age of 4 years and six months.

Grandad sold the farm and moved to Toowoomba. Mum and Dad had a dairy farm at Brymaroo, milking 40 cows by hand; the milk went to Rosemount cheese factory by horse (called Nugget)and cart.

Gordon then went to Nungil State School where he attended in grade six.

His days started early if his father was going to plough the fields. He had to bring in the team of 12 horses before he went to school.

In 1948, we moved to Suffolk Street, after selling the farm.

Gordon attended the East State School for about three months and passed scholarship at State High School doing a commercial course.

One thing Gordon remembered quite well was when he and his brother, Trevor, were working on their cars, our little brother, Rodney would take the tools and make a nuisance of himself, so what they did was peg him to the clothes line to keep him out of their way. Brotherly love!

Gordon finally convinced our mother that he should be allowed to get a job. He started working at Russell and Sons, dairy engineers, working on dairy farms. He became senior fitter for Queensland. Travelling by train as far afield as Brisbane, Gympie and Kingaroy.

After a time as a plant operator etc. he went into National Service Training in the RAAF and was based at Amberley.

Gordon met Joan whom he married 17th October 1959 in Toowoomba. Joan came with a ready-made family of Stan, Suzanne and Marianne. The arrival of daughter, Lesley in October 1960 completed the family.

For the next few years Gordon drove trucks interstate to Sydney for Oakey Abattoir.

From 1966 Gordon was a plant operator for a number of years with Buckley Earthmoving. He later changed occupations and went driving tankers collecting and testing milk from many dairy farms around the Downs. He always laughingly referred to this as 'going out around the ridges'.

Particular highlights of Gordon's life were the arrival of Lesley's two children, Kimberly and James who adored their Granddad, and unsurprisingly, the feeling was mutual.

After Gordon retired, he kept busy as a volunteer at the Museum of Australian Army Flying at Oakey and at Highfields Pioneer Village. His voluntary work at the Pioneer Village won him an Australia Day award for Community Service.

He and Joan sold their house in Bridge Street in 1985 and built a new house at Kingsthorpe. Joan reluctantly moved to a nursing home for the last few years of her life due to impaired mobility. Gordon remained in the family home but was a loyal and daily visitor to his Joanie.

Sadly, Gordon lost his lifetime partner and rock, Joan, on the 6th December 2020. They had celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary the year before and had received congratulatory messages from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as well as many Australian politicians and dignitaries. Gordon got quite a kick out of that.

Gordon loved his home at Kingsthorpe and especially loved spending many hours pottering in his shed.

In more recent years he was also frequently seen out and about on his red mobility scooter which many times found its way to the local pub where Gordy, as he was known to socialise.

Gordon's life ended in hospital on 18th February after a short illness, just a week short of his 90th Birthday.

He is sadly missed and remembered with much love by all of us.

Written and spoken by Jeanesse. (One of Gordon's sisters).