Australia Day Honours: many north shore high achievers recognised
A husband and wife team from Wahroonga have extra cause to celebrate Australia Day after both being honoured with awards.
It’s Neil Silver’s birthday today but both he and his wife, Lynette, have an extra cause to celebrate, having been honoured with Australia Day awards.
The Wahroonga couple are among 27 north shore residents recognised for their contributions to the community.
The Silvers, who married 52 years ago and have two children and three grandchildren, have lived their entire lives on the north shore, including the past 38 years in Wahroonga.
Their longstanding contribution to history and community is being recognised following years of hard work bringing to light the fate of Australian and British prisoners of war who perished in the Sandakan Death Marches in World War II in Malaysia.
Lynette Silver, 73, is the author of 13 books on historical subjects including Sandakan — A Conspiracy of Silence published in 1998.
“The story was so horrific that the massive amount of information and material that had been collected during the war was sitting in archives and had never been actually looked at because it was all too ghastly,” Lynette Silver said.
“The government at the time made a conscious decision that the details of the story were just too much for the relatives, so it was never passed on.”
The Sandakan book took six years of research, and was the first work of history to reveal the least known but arguably worst disaster to befall Australia in World War II — the Sandakan Death March in Sabah, on Borneo Island.
Of the 2434 Australian and British soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese army and taken to Borneo, 1787 Australians and 641 British died.
Six Australians escaped and survived, aided by the indigenous Dusun people, who also took great risks to give food to the starving prisoners as they were on the marches.
Lynette earned an OAM in 2004 for services to veterans, and this year has been honoured with an AM for significant service to the community through historical battlefield tours and commemorative services.
In 2006, Lynette and Neil started organising treks that follow the Sandakan Death March route of 100 kilometres across the jungles of Sabah, for up to 20 Sandakan POW relatives or interested adventurers.
There have been up to seven treks per year at different times, but currently the Silver’s run two to three each year.
Lynette’s 14th history book will be released this year, and is titled Angels of Mercy.
After 40 years in banking and finance, her husband Neil retired at 57, but it was on his first trip to Borneo that Neil saw the importance of the work Lynette was doing, that he had been supporting.
“He became as committed to the story as I was,” Lynette said.
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Now Neil, who turns 74 today, has been awarded an OAM for service to community history, recognising his work with fundraising, administrative work and logistical support for their shared projects in Borneo as well as funding of scholarships for indigenous Dusun women and a range of humanitarian works including the “Buy A Smile” harelip correction project.
“[The Sandakan research] has given tremendous comfort to 2500 families that didn’t ever know what had happened,” Neil said.
“Not a week goes past when we don’t get emails from people asking about what happened to a member of their family.”
North shore residents earned 17 Medals of the Order of Australia (OAM) honours (one of which has been awarded posthumously), nine Members of the Order (AM) honours and one AO, or Officer of the Order.
Eight of the north shore awards went to women making significant contributions to Australian life in the fields of heritage, business, visual arts, social welfare, community and government.
Overall, more than 37 per cent of the national awards went to women, the highest percentage in the history of the awards.
This year’s Australia Day Honours List is also the largest since the Order of Australia was established in 1975, with a total of 1127 General Division of the Order of Australia awards and 273 meritorious and military awards being given.
The entire list of awards for north shore achievers are as follows:
AO (Officer of the Order of Australia)
Professor Andrew John Pitman (Pymble): For distinguished service to science as a leading researcher, particularly of climate systems and the environment.
AM (Member of the Order of Australia)
Geoffrey Norman Brunsdon (Northbridge): for significant service to the finance, banking and insurance sectors, and to charitable organisations.
Dr Lester William Burgess (Warrawee): For significant service to international agricultural research in the areas of plant pathology and biosecurity.
Paul Davey (Chatswood): For significant service to parliament and politics as Federal Director of the National Party of Australia
Dr Craig Edgar Donaldson (Lindfield): For significant service to medicine in the field of ophthalmology, and to professional eye health bodies
Emeritus Professor Gareth Evans (Lane Cove West): For significant service to science, and to education, in the field of animal reproductive biology
The Honourable Patricia Forsythe (St Ives): For significant service to business, and to the people and parliament of New South Wales
Emeritus Professor Roger Stuart Pulvers (Roseville): For significant service to Japanese literature and culture and a writer, translator and educator
Brian Seidler (Wahroonga): For significant service to the building and construction industry through professional organisations
Lynette Silver OAM (Wahroonga): For significant service to the community through historical battlefield tours and commemorative services
OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia)
Ada Belcher (Lane Cove): For service to the community through social welfare organisations
Dr Ian Douglas Cochrane (Wahroonga): For service to people with a disability, and to education
Dr Christopher Peter Dodds (Roseville): For service to medicine as an anaesthetist
Bridget Mary Lee (Longueville): For service to the Irish community of New South Wales
Elaine Dorothy Malicki (Turramurra): For service to local government, and to the community of Ku-ring-gai
Neil Graham Marks (Wahroonga): For service to cricket
Patricia Mary Moy (Willoughby): For service to the visual arts
Jon Edward Nicholls (Cammeray): For service to the performing arts
Lois Dawn Rasmussen (Pymble): For service to heritage preservation
Dr Jaswinder Singh Samra (Longueville): For service to medicine as a pancreatic specialist
Peter Richard Schutz (Roseville): For service to the agribusiness sector
John Neil Silver (Wahroonga): For service to community history
Ian James Steward (Wahroonga): For service to the community through the Anglican Church of Australia
Jane Thornton (Killara): For service to the community through social welfare organisations
The late Colonel William Alexander Whyte MC (deceased, formerly of Chatswood): For service to veterans and their families
John Robert Wilcox (Roseville): For service to education
Colonel Warwick Anthony Young (Middle Cove): For service to veterans and their families
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