With requests for music by Bizet, Paganini, Puccini, and Nat King Cole singing Irving Gordon’s Unforgettable, and poems by Banjo Patterson, Joyce Kilmer and Clare Harner, Kate Smorty had everything in place, for the time when she was not.
On Sunday around 100 friends and family gathered at Marvell Hall in Byron, right next door to the home she chose to end her days, Georges Cottages, the scene of her last great triumph.
MC Mark Swivel introduced a long line of people wanting to honour Kate with their words and the words she had chosen for them in the art form she loved the most, along with opera: poetry.
Kate was remembered as a fiercely protective and loving mother who kept her children’s friends on their toes and in their place; as a single parent who worked hard to support her family in the days before Centrelink payments; and a staunch supporter of the ABC and other causes she thought worthy – up to and including her fight to save her home in Byron from the claws of greed.
A parade of poems
Kate’s son Warwick Smorti started the proceedings with Clancy of the Overflow, followed by daughter and fellow Feros activist Dianne Brien, Mandy Nolan who recited Trees, Maree Eddings, Sydoni Smith and Eve Jeffery who read Immortality: ‘Do not stand by my grave and weep…’
Kate’s great grand daughter Matilda Brien took photos of the event.
Guests then gathered for morning tea to watch a slide show of family photos and delight in the strains of Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending, Vera Lynn’s rendition of Ross Parker and Hughie Charles’ We’ll Meet Again, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s The Messiah, Puccini’s E lucevan le stelle from Tosca, Paul Robeson’s version of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s Ol’ Man River and Harry Belafonte’s recording of Irving ‘Lord Burgess’ Burgie’s Jamaica Farewell.
Vale Kate Smorty – you were a bloody legend who will not soon be forgotten.
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