JACK Ross once said: "You can't live forever. We all age, we all have to go." -- Stocks

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Subject: JACK Ross once said: "You can't live forever. We all age, we all have to go."

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biography

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Date Posted: 01:12:56 06/03/09 Wed
In reply to: oldest man as well aged 110 Bendigo--Jack Ross 's message, "Australias last remaining WW1 digger has died" on 00:13:06 06/03/09 Wed

JACK Ross once said: "You can't live forever. We all age, we all have to go."

About 4am this morning, at a nursing home in Bendigo, Australia's last World War I survivor went.

Mr Ross was reluctant to speak of his past, adamant his life was more than the events of a few months when he was 18.

"I never talked much about the war. No one ever won anything out of wars," he once said.
While his brother Harrie served in France, Mr Ross was a wireless operator on Sydney's North Head in 1918.

At the time, Mr Ross's mother travelled from Maryborough to Melbourne to demand a government minister save her youngest from joining his brother Harrie in Europe.

"My brother got knocked about in France. I was keen on the wireless and I ended up listening to the German signals," Mr Ross said.

"Harrie said later I'd done the right thing not being in France."

Nicknamed "Pop" at the Golden Oaks nursing home where he lived in Bendigo, Mr Ross once said he never regretted not having more war stories to swap with those who fought on foreign fields.

As for his long life, his only vice was chocolate.

"Good luck, good living, good eating and no booze," was his advice.

"I was discouraged by my parents from drinking when I was young and they had a fair bit of influence."

Mr Ross worked on the Victorian railways for 45 years until his retirement in 1964, but served Australia again in World War II as a member of the volunteer defence corps. He was also a long term member of the Australian Labor Party.

Kangaroo Flat RSL sub-branch acting president Ivon Hutcheson said Mr Ross was "a wonderful fellow" and active member of the club for many years.

The RSL will wait on discussions with the Department of Veterans' Affairs before it decides on a fitting tribute, Mr Hutcheson said.

Mr Ross is survived by his daughter Peggy, son Robert, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

The only known living UK veterans of World War I are Henry Allingham, 112, and Harry Patch, 110, both of whom live in Britain, and 107-year-old Claude Choules, who lives in Perth.

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