A Churchill couple who spent about 35 years entertaining Gippsland has reflected on the countless friendships they built through playing toe-tapping four-four melodies, Strauss waltzes and the rock ‘n’ roll to resurrect long-lost dance moves.
Now it is time for the community to say thank you to the retiring old-time dance veterans Ken and Alice Rae with an afternoon tea in Traralgon.
“Most people have half-a-dozen or a dozen real close friends in life. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds all over Gippsland. It’s just been beautiful,” Ken said.
The couple, who have lived most of their lives at Hazelwood North, often played live organ at nursing homes, which they said had a “mostly brilliant” response from the residents, however, “some go to sleep”.
One memorable day a resident licked the microphone, thinking it was an ice cream, amplifying the sound around the room.
“We had a situation in Moe; a lady had had a stroke 18 years before and hadn’t spoken since … and her husband used to wheel her in and go at the back of the room,” Ken said.
“One day he had the flu and didn’t come and the nurses wheeled her in up the front and I’m playing and singing and all of a sudden Al realised this lady was singing.
“[Alice] put the microphone in front of her mouth and she sang every word to those songs – a lady who couldn’t talk.”
The woman died about two months after the incident.
Ken, born in Morwell, said he had always had a very “people-oriented” life, except for when he was dairy farming.
“That’s what I don’t like about dairy farming, you’re on your own, there’s no one to talk to,” he said.
He and Alice ran a music shop in Morwell which equally served as a resting spot for travellers on their way to Melbourne with a fire burning and public toilets.
Their Hazelwood North home was the venue of about 300 weddings, with a hay shed converted into a lush green altar of ferns and eight acres of beautiful gardens connected by lawn paths.
“We lost a daughter [Jenni] 37 years ago and Al started gardening,” Ken said.
Alice said she and Ken were “so lucky” with the garden and venue that followed.
“We lost a daughter, but it meant we actually shared everybody else’s kids,” Alice said.
“A friend gave us a whole pile of bonsais … and I didn’t have time for bonsais so I planted most of them in the garden and even though they were 39 years in the little tubs they grew into normal trees. It was beautiful.”
Ken was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2009 when he was in the middle of a 15-year career in aerial photography.
It was a job which took him above every Stockland in Australia, gave him an appreciation for the speed of Melbourne’s urban sprawl and offered him views of every month in the Melbourne Star Ferris wheel’s construction.
Alice said they liked to giggle about how he was not asked back when they pulled it down.
When Ken survived a light plane crash he said his mind “went mad” as the plane went down, piercing a roof with its wheels, nose-diving over a fence and cartwheeling to a stop between a swimming pool and a home.
“I thought I was going to die from leukaemia, not this,” he said.
Ken and Alice, who played old-time dance music at the Morwell RSL on the third Sunday of the month for the past 15 years, had to find people to cover their 40-odd bookings this year when Ken became very ill.
“We’ve got it all under control. Now I can retire gracefully,” Ken said.
The community afternoon tea for Ken and Alice Rae will be on Sunday, June 10 at the Saint James Anglican Church, Grey Street, Traralgon, 1pm-4pm.
A plate of food to share and a gold coin donation would be appreciated.
To RSVP, phone Don Johnston 0428 514 411.
