Whos this man with the movie star looks who was piped out of a packed church last Saturday by a Corrective Services honour guard? Read about Bob Stapletons funeral last weekend: HE was brought in to the slow drum of a uniformed guard of honour from Corrective Services NSW. The church was packed, with a crowd of mourners including crown prosecutors, judges, journalists, prison officers, assistant commissioners, public servants, priests, friends, and a mass of loving family. They heard how he had spent his Saturdays - while on call for potential prison escapes, deaths in custody or other incidents – ferrying his beloved 11 grandsons around New South Wales to sports fixtures. How as a young man, he had spent five years studying in Rome to be a priest. The surprises, along with the warmth and goodwill rolled out last Saturday when Robert James Stapleton – Bob to his friends and family – was farewelled at a memorable and touching service on Sydney’s northern beaches. Onetime newspaper reporter and long time media adviser to the NSW prison system, Bob Stapleton was remembered as “intelligent, honest, caring, diligent” and a widely respected government officer whose calm counsel informed an often strident and always demanding media pack with his candour and deep font of knowledge. “He will be remembered for his honesty and fair mindedness, as a role model, but he was also a mischievous practical joker who would . . . round up the neighbourhood cats and dress the dog up for when the Jehovah’s Witness came knocking,” one of Bob’s four children, Gerry Stapleton, told around 400 people in St Kieran’s Catholic Church in Manly Vale, Sydney on Saturday morning. First Bob’s sisters, then his children, and a former boss at Corrective Services painted a portrait of a warm, engaging and selfless man. Bob, who died from cancer on October 12, seven weeks shy of his 79th birthday, was the only boy of eight children born to Isabelle and Archie Stapleton in Yeoval and later Dubbo, NSW, in the first half of the 20th century. He was a reasonably talented sportsman, although a frustrated cricketer, at De La Salle College in Dubbo. After deciding to study for the priesthood, he was selected to go to Rome. Bob spent five-and-a-half years in post-war Italy among student priests from around the world at the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (founded in 1622). Bob never talked about this extraordinary time of his life, at least to work colleagues, and the pressure of taking classes in Latin and conversing in Latin – which Bob spoke with an Aussie accent – may have contributed to his not completing his studies. His return home was fortuitously timed. One of his sisters had moved to Sydney and was sharing a dormitory with another girl from home, Marina Donoghue, who remarked at the photograph of Bob [see the movie star shot of him in 1955 attached] and remarked how handsome he had become. Marina returned to Dubbo and so did Bob. By the time his former fellow seminarians were being ordained in Rome, Bob and Marina were being married in Dubbo. Their happy family life, which resulted in four children, began and Bob gained employment as a journalist, moving to Sydney to work at Fairfax, for The Sun newspaper and The Sydney Morning Herald, as a reporter and sub-editor. Gerry Stapleton recounted the happy times of he and his siblings’ childhood, with a father who could never be found at the pub, the club, or the races after finishing work, but always at home with his family. Bob’s backed up gentle humour with his kids with staunch support and practical help and advice, particularly when they chose studies and professions. In the early 1980s, Bob left newspapers to work as a media adviser to Bill Crabtree, Minister for (Police and Emergency) Services. From there, he transferred to the NSW Department of Corrective Services: Bob had found a new profession and place of work which would provide him with an endless supply of interesting situations and issues. When Marina became ill in 1990, Bob used up his long service leave to care for her. When she died, Bob was a 55-year-old widower who buried his grief in caring for his family. Gerry offered other snippets of Bob’s life – he never owned a credit card, he was fit, walking at least 10 kms a day. He was a social justice crusader who gave his money to the Catholic charity group, Caritas, and he cared deeply for refugees, the poor and the needy. He found solace and friendship with widow, Suzanne Westgarth, and made her family part of his. His 11 grandsons never called him “pop” or “grandpa”, just Bob, or “Bobby Carlos” or “the yes man” because he responded to requests for pizza, chocolate or ice-cream always with “yes”, even as he drove the hectic Saturday sport run across a fair slice of the state, from the northern beaches to the Southern Highlands. Corrective Services NSW Assistant Commissioner Luke Grant thanked the Stapleton family for allowing Bob’s “Corrective Services family” to share his last farewell. He told the assembled about Bob’s natural calm and composure during a hot running prison incident “in the midst of the yelling and the phones running off the hook, Bob would chuckle and reminisce about an incident in the 70s or the 80s which had been much worse”. “Over 32 years . . . he was the one [journalists] always sought out. “He loved the stories and the people “He had all the Christian virtues of faith, hope, charity . . . and we will never see his like again.” The Corrective Services honour guard presented Bob’s family with an honour board and Bob’s 30-year service medal. They placed an Australian flag over his coffin and Bob’s sons and grandsons carried him out into the hot day for the final farewell.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 05:48:22 +0000
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