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and to his former naval job. Lloyd was also neared his ailing mother, Zoe, who had left Ayr and
was living in Torquay. He accordingly saw much more of her than John, and periodically he
visited Bill and Gwen, keeping in touch with Gwen and her daughter Pam after Bill's death in
1983.
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Bill's funeral was attended by John and Lloyd, and both sons were also at the funeral of their
mother, Zoe, in Melbourne in April 1992.
What now of the Melbourne Honeycombes?
Arthur Honeycombe, who was born in September 1923 and was the only son of Dick and
Addie Honeycombe of Footscray, also served with the RAAF during the Second World War,
as Bill had done.
After leaving school at the age of 14, Arthur went to the Footscray Technical College before
joining his father at Mitchells, farm machinery manufacturers, where he worked as a fitter and
turner for 42 years. In 1941, when he reached 18, he joined the RAAF. There was no
conscription, and as he was in a protected industry he could be exempt. He signed on
voluntarily and unencouraged by mates, though several of his friends then followed his lead. His
mother was extremely upset and strongly opposed his action: she thought he was sure to be
killed. But Arthur, trained as an engineer, never left Australia. Having done his basic training at
Shepperton, he moved to Laverton and then to Gorrie, 200 miles south east of Darwin. He was
in Darwin a few months after the Japanese attacked and bombed the town, and helped to repair
wrecked and damaged aircraft. After a second posting to Laverton, he left the RAAF in
November 1945.
On 7 September 1946 he married Laurel Winifred Ellwood in Sydney, at the Manly Methodist
Church. The young couple lived with Arthur's parents (and Auntie Louie) at 28 Coral Avenue
for three years, before moving around the corner to Govan Street, Footscray - just before
Thelma, Arthur's younger sister, married Bill Clemence in November 1949. Bill had been a
prisoner-of-war of the Japanese and had slaved on the building of the infamous railway line in
Thailand between Bangkok and Burma. His story is told in the section Afterwords that follows
this chapter.
Arthur and Laurel had four children, all born in Footscray.
The first, a boy, was the fifth generation of this family to have Richard among his forenames. His
first name, however, was Alan, and he was the first Honeycombe in the world to be so named.
Alan was born on 25 February 1947.
Three daughters followed - Lynette, in 1951; Brenda, in 1961; and Dawn in 1965. In due
course the three girls married, respectively - David Woodyard, a carpenter; David Phillips, a
fitter and turner; and Ian Jeffrey, an overhead linesman. Brenda remarried, her second husband
being a chauffeur, Malcolm Sellars, after her first husband, David Phillips, hanged himself in a
black fit of depression in 1991.
Alan Honeycombe also produced four children when he married, as his father and great-
grandfather had done: in his case two boys and two girls. A schoolteacher (BSc), Alan married
a nurse, whose family came from the Netherlands. Christened Alberdina Maria Boudewyna
Van Staveren, she was known at Beth. They married in Yallourn, east of Melbourne, on 6
December 1969, and settled eventually in Healseville. Their four children were Ross, born
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