NEVILLE Davis is a dedicated family man, whose service and parish commitment has been a life-sustaining force.
The remarkable man also celebrated his 104th birthday last week.
“We all love him, he’s a great father,” daughter Hilary O’Reilly, 54, who is one of Neville’s five children, and second youngest daughter, said.
Neville has 18 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
“He is such a caring loving person,” Hilary, who remembers her father still riding his bicycle in his 80s, said.
“He used to bicycle to early-morning Mass at the Star of the Sea Church at Cleveland. I used to be amazed.”
Hilary attributes her father’s longevity to the things he loves and has built his life upon – hospitality, close relationships and strong faith.
“Dad has always been a committed parish member. He is social, and was actively involved with St Vincent de Paul,” she said.
“He and Mum – the pair of them were always hospitable, with an open door.”
Mr Davis was also a generous supporter of the St Veronica Welfare Committee, which assists in the development of independent, sustainable communities through education and short-term support.
He was one of the committee’s original donors.
At 104, Neville remains lucid, with a soft English accent and a sharp recall of an exciting life, lived well.
Born in England in 1912, he served as a Royal Navy bomb disposal officer during the Second World War.
As the war ended, Neville was still diffusing bombs in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) when a munitions clean-up went wrong and Neville suffered massive burns to his body.
“I shouldn’t have lived,” he said.
“More than two-thirds of my skin was removed.
“It was painful, but I was back on duty in six weeks.
“But it did affect me in other ways – scars, you could say.”
A classic understatement from a humble serviceman – it took years of rehabilitation for Neville to recover.
In the late 1950s he found his way to Australia with his wife, Jane.
Jane was also part of the British war effort.
She was a German translator, and was part of the intelligence team that worked on decoding the German Enigma code.
Jane received daily messages in German at the famous Bletchley Park code-breaking headquarters in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.
“It was top-secret work,” Neville said.
“I was present 50 years later, when my wife broke her code of silence (with official permission) and spoke to a friend who had also been in intelligence, but until then, had never spoken about it.”
Neville and Jane settled in Brisbane and were introduced to the St Veronica’s charity and signed up to the sponsorship program.
It was a commitment that carried on until July 1996 when Neville wrote to the charity secretary and asked to be taken off the individual sponsorship program as he was 84 and Jane was in her seventies and they were concerned they would not be able to “see out” the educational program of a young child.
Instead they became regular quarterly donors to many of the special overseas projects conducted by St Veronica’s.
Jane died four years ago, shortly after Neville turned 100.
He received a letter from Queen Elizabeth on his birthday and many relatives came from overseas to celebrate the milestone of a man whose life has been one of adventure, generosity and caring.
By Mark Bowling
