A man who has worn many hats, chaired numerous meetings, supported tons of causes and been a vital cog in a variety of community groups, Paynesville’s Lindsay Crawford was recognised with on Order of Australia Medal on Australia Day.

“Gobsmacked,” Lindsay said when asked his reaction to the news.

“It’s a great honour, it’s not to be taken lightly. For my life, it’s the pinnacle, it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.

“Someone said the other day that I must feel worthy of it, but no I don’t. You don’t do help out for the recognition, and frankly I never even thought of the worthiness of it.

“When the chips are down in a flood, a fire, or whatever, people come together and help each other out.”

Lindsay said he nearly ruined what was a pleasant surprise.

“I got an email and it was talking about Canberra and honours and I didn’t know anything about it, and I just junked it.

“We were up in Queensland and the phone started ringing. This lady starts talking about honours and Canberra again, I said ‘there’s no one here doing honours’. As soon as I said that, Lindy said ‘that’s for me’.

“We had to trawl back through the email and find it.”

The late Peter Wertheimer was the man to nominate Lindsay more than 18 months ago.

“He fronted Lindy two years ago and I thought they were just talking about yacht club quizzes,” Lindsay said.

“We told Peter in October when I found out. He was near death’s door and has died since. That’s not a breaking of the confidence, in my view, because he started the whole thing.

“It was nice for him to know before he passed.”

Mr Crawford’s list of community involvement is long: 35 years with the Paynesville Fire Brigade, fighting numerous bushfires, being a captain, first lieutenant and brigade management member; Life member member of Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club in 1994 after joining 1958 with stints as commodore, vice commodore, rear commodore, treasurer and committee member; A member of Rotary Club of Mitchell River from 1991 to 2017, including a year as president, six years on the district youth exchange committee and winner of a Paul Harris Fellow and community service award; current member of the Paynesville Men’s Shed where he was president from 2014 to 2016; Bairnsdale Kindergarten president in 1980; probation officer; current member and volunteer maintenance officer of Dragons Abreast Gippsland Waratahs Dragon Boat Club; and list goes on.

Lindsay’s volunteer work and interest in helping was evident from a young age.

“When I was 10 dad joined the (Gippsland Lakes) yacht club and Terry Webster was the social secretary and he grabbed me as his gopher,” he said.

“I’d cook the snags, run his errands, but it wasn’t a formal position, I just liked doing it, just helping.

“When I was 15 I joined the fire brigade and you get involved in helping people, anything.

I fought in the 1965 fires, which went from Heyfield to Mallacoota down the ridge, not as bad as these, not anywhere near as catastrophic, and fought the 1978 fires as well - I had 35 years in the brigade helping where I could.

“Mum and dad were involved in community groups, into Probus and those sort of things and you just sort of drift into it yourself.

“We had kids and I was president of the kindergarten and then onto the primary school. Obviously to become president you have to be on the committee for a while.”

Lindsay grew up framing at Wattle Point and it was his farming experience which allowed him to use his skills for practices, both legal and illegal, for the good of Paynesville and its people.

“When they put a crane in down at yacht club I drove in railway lines to stop the retaining wall tipping over, then when they wanted the road sealed I brought the tractor and grader down and set it all up,” he said.

“Every flood I took the tractor down and took all the boats out of the water.

“One year I was running around Paynesville with a trailer delivering milk, newspapers and bread that couldn’t be delivered because of the floods. We did that for nearly a week.

“And, highly illegal, I took people from Raymond Island that couldn’t get up to the St Peter’s Church for a funeral on the back of a trailer. We used a couple of chairs as steps to get people on the trailer and took them up to the church.”

Getting off the farm, Lindsay enjoyed his time with Rotary, the youth exchange program being a particular highlight.

“Youth exchange alone, we’d make nine trips to the airport a year, picking kids up and taking them back, and we did that for six years,” he said.

“When I joined Rotary I was not long out of farming where you spend your whole life on your own out on tractors chasing sheep and what not, so it was just nice to be dressed up and going out.

“Rotary is generally not hands on, it raises money and distributes it to good causes, supporting people in need.”

Lindsay and wife, Lindy, pulled their family together last weekend to celebrate the award.

“We had a little bit of a cheat celebration on Saturday afternoon. My mum said when she conks out our family will fall apart because she won’t be there to hold it together,” Lindsay said.

“So I thought we ought to get the family together and invite anyone else to come around, so we let them know sort of half a day early.

“In the lead up the family was very critical, not knowing I had got the honour, that we chose the long weekend to have this get together, they were a little bit disenchanted with that, but they soon woke up.

“On Sunday down at Paynesville our granddaughter got the Young Citizen of the Year so it was a nice weekend for the family.”

IMAGE: Paynesville’s Lindsay Crawford was awarde3d an Order of Australia Medal on Australia Day, topping off a great weekend for the family with granddaughter, Zoe Cooper, being announced Paynesville’s Young Citizen of the Year. K80-32