Australian socialite Eileen “Red” Bond is farewelled during catholic requiem

The former wife of entrepreneur Alan Bond was celebrated on Monday morning in an 80-minute ceremony.

Iconic Australian socialite Eileen “Red” Bond has been remembered as “wonderful, exuberant, loyal” mother and friend during a catholic requiem mass held in WA.

The former wife of entrepreneur Alan Bond was celebrated on Monday morning in an 80-minute ceremony held at Fremantle’s St Patrick’s Basilica, her childhood church.

Bond’s casket, along with the church altar, was festooned with red roses and pink orchids, a dramatic and vibrant backdrop for the celebration of a similarly well-lived life.

Bond’s eldest son John, a West Australian businessman, said his devoutly catholic mother could be best summed up with a stream of “F” words – faith, family, friends and fun.

He spoke briefly of his father, the disgraced businessman Alan who built a property, brewing and media empire before it all came cashing down in the eighties while recalling the circumstances of his parent’s introduction.

Eileen Teresa Hughes had been all of 16 when she’d fallen for the motorbike-riding high school dropout at dancing lessons in Fremantle.

Eileen Bond at a fundraiser in 2022. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Eileen Bond pictured on the eve of Melbourne Cup.

Son John – and a wedding – Eileen’s only marriage – would follow a year later in 1955.

By age 21 Eileen had welcomed two more children, Craig and Susanne.

Youngest child Jody (Fewster) would arrive years later after doctors informed Eileen she was unlikely to have any more children.

Eileen’s famously fiery temperament was referenced just once, by her son, when he recalled the unravelling of the Bond’s four-decade-long marriage due to “dad’s behaviour”.

That behaviour would spur Eileen to “cut the legs off dad’s suit pants and throw them out the window.”

A keen swimmer, skier, horserider and dune-buggy driver during their marriage, life in the Bond household where Eileen was firmly at the tiller was a series of games, extraordinary parties and learning to party “like the master”, Eileen.

“The house was always open, the fun always on and the red wine and champagne flowing,” John Bond recalled.

Not even school pick-up was permitted to be mundane with Eileen at the wheel of the family Bentley – and a miniature donkey in the back.

During the Bond-backed 1983 triumphant America’s Cup challenge and over four challenges, “Red’s” mothering extended as well to the yacht’s crew.

The hearse containing the casket leaves the basilica in Fremantle, WA. Picture: NewsWire/Philip Gostelow

The casket of Eileen Bond after her funeral service on July 14, 2025. Picture: NewsWire/Philip Gostelow

This was a woman who would win over America’s snobbish yachting fraternity and be introduced to the sitting US president Ronald Reagan.

So broad and diverse was Bond’s circle of friends – “exclusive was not a word (she) comprehended …” her eulogist offered – it would take three songs (Danny Boy, Take Me Home Country Roads, Somewhere Over the Rainbow) to screen a package of cherished family photographs to the St Patrick’s congregation.

In an attempt to explain the absence of a birth date on his mother’s order of ceremonies booklet, Bond conceded Eileen’s age had long been “a closely guarded secret”.

Even “trusted staff were asked to leave the room” when his mother was required to give it.

“Red” would likely have cursed an online funeral register which gave it as June 4, 1937 – a date which made her 88 when she died on July 2 following a series of strokes.

The faithful catholic never quite came to terms with a brother’s vow of poverty after joining the seminary.

She constantly attempted to fill brother Don’s pockets with cash and hoped in vain to persuade him to pilfer a pair of “good” shoes from their father’s wardrobe.

A second eulogist, a priest, recalled a woman who was an “Australian icon” and “like a red flame. Always radiant and warm, full of energy and passion to everyone around her, especially to her family and friends.”

She was, he said: “Humble, down to earth (with a) slightly larrikin nature who had a gift for getting along with anyone”.

The priest reassured Eileen’s surviving children, grandchildren and great-grand-children the family matriarch would now be “ … in heaven with God. Heaven help them.”

Originally published as Australian socialite Eileen “Red” Bond is farewelled during catholic requiem