Saying goodbye to a smile that lit up the town

He checked over the small, frail child and conveyed his concern about the baby’s next few weeks, never mind his next few years.

On Friday Cliff was laid to rest in Echuca, just four months shy of his 100th birthday.

In that century between birth and death, Cliff would live so much life, most other people would need two lives to come anywhere near matching him.

He would be a fair dinkum farm boy, but one who always got to school — by horse or pushbike (but in winter would often be hours late because his bike would get bogged).

It would take a broken wrist to keep him off the bike, and out of school, for six weeks — and that would change his life.

After spending all that time home, Cliff decided the farm was the life for him and he just never went back to school.

Like many of his generation, Cliff would live through droughts, flood and fire — that’s so often the farmer’s lot in life — and he would also live through the Great Depression, enlist in World War II as part of the maintenance crew on RAAF planes and come home to his beloved farm and his famous vegie patches and gardens.

Seeing service in the UK, North Africa and finally Italy, he was still based at Udine there working on planes of every shape and size when the war ended in Europe, and was still on the job when the atom bombs fell on Japan and the war was over at last.

But Cliff, happy to be home and alive, still had plenty of campaigns ahead.

Starting with the very attractive Audrey, who, prodded by friends at a local dance, gave the returned serviceman a cheeky wink.

It was enough to prompt Cliff to wander over and ask her for a dance.

And in family legend, a week later it was enough for Cliff to ask her to marry him.

Audrey and Cliff, both dedicated dancers, would spend the rest of their lives together tripping the light fantastic wherever they could find music and a dancefloor — and for a good part of those years Cliff often doubled up as the MC for the organisers.

As dedicated as he was to dance, he was just as dedicated to being a pioneer in the dairy industry — he was the first in his region to install a herringbone dairy to cater for growing herds.

And Cliff was also imbued with a sense of service, way beyond his years in the military, that would eventually make him Echuca’s Citizen of the Year in 2002.

The RSL was a given, but Cliff would also become a champion of Legacy, at times working with more than 20 families, for years to come.

Then there would be his community work through more than 50 years as a member of the Masonic Lodge where Cliff, in keeping with his input wherever he went, wasn’t just a lodge member, he was a lodge leader and at one time or another held virtually every office available — although he preferred to steer clear of being treasurer, having no faith, he would say, in his arithmetic.

He attended every Echuca RSL meeting and made sure he was there for every Friday barbecue where he joined fellow veterans to see who had the biggest and best story to tell that week.

In an earlier interview with The Riv he said receiving the Citizen of the Year Award for Campaspe Shire for his tireless work in virtually every aspect of the community (he was also a founding member of Rich River Golf Club in his spare time) was “one of the highlights and most special moments” of his life.

He was also one of the driving forces behind the construction of the first Echuca War Memorial Aquatic Centre “so the kids had somewhere safe to swim” and he was a legend in competition and committees at tennis and lawn bowls.

Cliff taught his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren — who were all at his funeral on Friday — the key to squeezing the most out of this lemon we call life is all about the attitude we choose to adopt.

And by example he taught so many others the same lesson.

“I think attitude is the key to being able to live life to the fullest and enjoy it as much as possible — if you have a good attitude and outlook on life then you’ll be able to enjoy every one of its moments,” Cliff said.

“I wake up every morning and extract as much joy out of each day as I can.”

For a baby given little chance of surviving, Cliff Albert Spiers had more stories to tell than most and, in true Cliffy style, he was happy to tell them to any audience he could lay his hands on.

And the people loved hearing them, he was a raconteur with that rare gift of the gab and the charisma to go with it.

Sadly, in a packed Echuca Uniting Church on Friday, and again at Echuca cemetery for his RSL, Legacy and Masonic services, Cliffy for once had to let others do the talking for him.

And it was a story few will ever forget.