A Eulogy for Jeff Shaw (Jeffrey William Shaw) (Obituary‪)‬

Jeffrey William Shaw was born 10 October 1949. He was the son of William Shaw and Gladys May Shaw, nee Boyle. His sister, Christine, arrived two years later. Jeff and Christine grew up in the home that their parents had made in Thompson Street, Gladesville--more accurately Boronia Park, a suburb distinctive in character with a strong sense of place. In the 1950s, Boronia Park and Gladesville benefited from open space; in addition to public parks, paddocks abounded and the more than usual number of vacant blocks. Nearby was what we called the Lane Cove National Park, a vast acreage of virgin bush that dominated the ridge to the north; forbidding, too, a hideout for Darcy Dugan for several weeks. To be growing up in Boronia Park in the 1950s was an abiding good fortune for Jeff by any reckoning. His greatest bounty, beyond a loving family, was an excellent education in public schools. A short stroll down Thompson Street was Boronia Park Public. The attentive Jeffrey, clearly a scholar out of the ordinary, was cased for a finishing at Chatswood Opportunity. His high school was another of life's wonderful breaks. In 1962, Jeff enrolled at his local high school at Hunters Hill, the first cohort of the Wyndham Scheme, the first generation of students at a comprehensive co-educational secondary school. Jeff came into contact with boys and girls from the wider suburb of Gladesville, plus Hunters Hill, parts of Ryde, Lane Cove and Longueville. The friends he made then remained his friends for life. So many are here today.