Farewell Fred Ainsworth

He was a gentleman, an ex-air force man, clerk of the courts, and a beloved husband, father, step-father, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend.

COMMUNITY MAN: Frederick Charles Ainsworth O.A.M. Picture: Contributed

He was a gentleman, businessman, a sportsman and a marvellous dancer. An ex-air force man, clerk of the courts, lover of language, and cheeky traveller.

But most importantly, Frederick Charles Ainsworth was a beloved husband, father, step-father, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend.

Fred died peacefully last month at the grand age of 93, and this week the Chinchilla community gathered to bid him farewell.

Born in Stanthorpe to Walter and Sophie Ainsworth on June 6, 1926, Fred was the second of four brothers, and the family relocated to Boonarga when he was just eight years old.

His widow, Kay Ainsworth, said after he finished school as a "skinny 15 year old” Fred started work as a depositions clerk at Laidley.

Three years later, as World War II raged, 18-year-old Fred joined the air force where he trained as a navigator. With the war ending before his training was complete, Fred never saw active service.

"He likes to think Hitler knew he'd joined up!” Kay said.

Fred returned to work as a clerk of the courts in several areas across Queensland, including Roma, where he started a secretarial business and later worked at a furniture company - RDS.

After relocating to Dalby though Fred changed things by buying a newsagency.

Meanwhile the Dalby Sergeant of Police, Joyce Bracken, caught his eye and the pair were married in 1953.

They lived in Dalby with their two children - Susan and Stephen - until moving to Chinchilla in 1969.

This was the year Fred bought Glistor Motors, a farm machinery dealership. Then in 1981 he also purchased the Chinchilla Holden dealership, and Ainsworth Motors and Machinery Pty Ltd was formed.

But Fred was always far more than a businessman, and Kay recalled his deep love of sport.

Everything from cricket to rugby league (Ainsworth Motors even sponsored a Bulldogs team for many years), golf, bowls, and even tennis were in his wheelhouse.

"As far as tennis is concerned he likes to tell people that his greatest achievement was the fact that he and his future mother-in-law played tennis against Roy Emerson and his mother, and trounced them!” Kay said.

Roy Emerson went on to be a world champion tennis player. Meanwhile Fred was patron of the Chinchilla Bowls Club for at least a decade. But he also had a grace about him, and dance was his hidden talent.

He came second in the Queensland Country Dance Championships in 1947, but his daughter Sue said he was somewhat less graceful on another occasion - when he was at a restaurant in Los Angeles on the eve of his birthday.

Having had a few drinks, when the clock passed midnight Fred could be found dancing on the tables!

"That's when they asked him to leave,” Sue laughed.

In his years Fred always managed to enmesh himself in his community. In Dalby he was on the local fire brigade board, hospital board, and involved in the APEX club.

When he moved to Chinchilla Fred got involved in Rotary Club and later became a Paul Harris fellow.

He was both a member of the Masonic Lodge and a Justice of the Peace for 70 years, and was the foundation member of the Australian Farmer Machinery Dealers Association. A church-going man, he attended St John's Anglican while in Dalby and St Cecilia's in Chinchilla.

He was on the Chinchilla hospital board and electricity board (SQWEB), involved in the school P & C, a local progress association, the RSL sub-branch, and in 2000 was awarded a Centenary Medal.

Fifteen years later he received the prestigious Order of Australia Medal.

Through his many endeavours Fred had his wife and children, but Joyce died in 1990. But Fred was lucky enough to find love again, and he married Kay in 1991.

At the time the town was in the middle of a drought, and Kay said the couple attended a future's workshop to figure our ways to help the town prosper.

It was the beginnings of the Chinchilla Melon Festival - and Fred was the very first chairman.

Together he and Kay made quite the team, and even knew how to make an incredible cocktail - as proven at the Melon Festival Cocktail Competition in a story that's almost unbelievable.

Kay said the pair came up with a cocktail that "consisted of a nip of cointreau, a squeeze of lemon juice, about half a glass of melon juice and half a glass of soda water, with ice”.

"But to come to that conclusion took a lot of experimentation!” Sue added.

The couple dubbed the cocktail the Chinchilla Droughtbuster.

"But the thing was, that the night of the cocktail party when it was announced, they announced us as the winners... and they'd hardly announced the winner and the heavens opened and we got three inches of rain that night!” Kay said.

But all jokes, stories, and honours aside, Kay said all in all Fred was first and foremost a wonderful father to two children and five stepsons.

She said there was one Indian proverb he always lived by that needed to be shared: "Never regret growing older, 'tis a privileged denied to many.”