What more can be said? What more needs to be said?
The memorial service for this architect, builder, musician was held yesterday, 2 March 2021. Here the family and some friends spoke about this remarkable man, elaborating their words with anecdotes, snippets from a complex life that reveal his character. One is, after all, encouraged to judge a person by their works. One simple gesture stood out: Nev built a gate in the fence between his and his neighbour's property to facilitate shared access. Nev was a gate builder in many other aspects of his life too.
We had planned to meet for lunch on the Wednesday; it had been nearly twelve months since we had met. The government's restrictions on Australians wanting to return home had kept us away longer than we had anticipated. Contact had been made again with a Lunar New Year greeting card: the lunch was a much anticipated event.
It was the early morning call on the Sunday before this date that passed on the sad news: Neville had died that morning.^ Such news always comes as a sharp, hard, numbing surprise leaving one to experience 'a heavy heart,' knowing exactly what this cliche term means as the weight of loss and sorrow lies burdened in the hollows of the body, leaving one only with hopelessly inadequate words to communicate one's feelings: "I'm sorry."
Neville, always known to myself as ‘Nev,’ was quiet, gentle, kind, and caring. He was a Millmerran boy who kept his charming, naive country roots in his character; but he was no fool. He was dux of Toowoomba State High School in 1965, a fact never spoken about, but recorded on the school's site.#
His architectural development and interests are recorded too in the Digital Archive of Queensland Architecture.* He loved his music. What is remarkable about Nev is that he never raised his voice, and never swore; his family noted these subtle characteristics at the memorial service. Gosh, I have already done both this morning while cursing the radio with its: "moving forward"; "the cyclonic winds of the cyclone"; " the company who"; "the person that"; "the family were"; the “you know” (no, I don’t); the “how did it feel?” and more and more poor grammar, irrational expressions, and odd questions; a concern that is explained as one's own problem, being too ‘inflexible,’ too easily annoyed by sloppy giggle and talk that is interwoven with the cunningly spun avoidance of media-trained politicians that journalists seem to happily accept and agree to.
Nev was aware of such silliness in life, but was able to accommodate this madness with a calmer demeanour, in the way that such extremes as floods and droughts are accepted and considered thoughtfully and patiently by practical country folk, with a nonchalant awareness of the passing foibles of life behind which lies a more stable, meaningful consistency rooted in simple contentment.
Nev was always supportive of the underdog. His own university experience that was transformed by the example and advice of Ian Sinnamon, remained with him as a guide, a model for him to do likewise. There was no pretence in Nev's approach to things. He delighted in exposing the nonsense of any situation and enjoyed the everyday, ordinary world that is extraordinary in its own unique way. His was not the exaggerated heroic position seen in the stance of today's Starchitects; yet Nev was a good architect, skilled and competent in all aspects of the profession. His appearance always suggested otherwise, but one soon learned that his casual approach to life concealed a commitment, talent, and competence that was clear, certain, cohesive and coherent.
Nev could design, document, detail, write specifications, reports, and supervise and manage with an ease that surprised. It was always Nev who was nominated to be the test case for the annual Quality Assurance review of Project Services, under the guise that all staff did likewise. Nev was not unaware of the stupidity of the situation where his perfectly assembled and categorised, filed documents were perused with a nodding, positive assessment while I sat opposite in the mayhem of my messy, archaeological filing system that worked on time and layers, as sediments, with the upper levels being the most recent documents.
Nev was in the year behind ours at university, being known for his interest in music and the architectural reviews. It was not until some years later that I met him again when starting work in the Commonwealth Works Department. His smiling, open face came with greetings and support that continued through the years when we met again at the State Works Department; his facilitation was always far more than one felt one deserved. Both these departments ended up with flash names to share in the 'real world,' and then finally faced their demise.
Sometimes we worked in parallel on different projects; sometimes we worked on the same project; we were always aware of each other's efforts, and enjoyed each other's company and opinions. There was no one better to have managing your project than Nev. He always brought to his work his skill as an architect, his understanding as a builder, and his sensitivity as a musician, even as a project manager where his cynicism of formal process always lingered in his judgements and considered actions that, in spite of this, still conformed and complied with everything required of the task. The mathematics of music seemed to establish the framework and rationale for his mode of operation.
At the heart of this professional world, Nev was always a friend, willing and wanting to share. It was a pleasure to be able to join Nev and his renegade colleague for a monthly Guinness lunch and chat session at the local Irish pub. John's attitude to life was very similar to Nev's. Nev always joked about the Vietnamese who had been tutored by John in English, wondering how many might now be talking with John's distinctive, broad, regional Somerset accent.
Nev loved the subversion of formal nonsense and irrational bureaucracy. He was always particularly pleased when his sense of practical structure challenged the engineer's calculations: "It was apparently said to be too light, but it never sagged one millimetre!" He once delighted in proving to a client who had complained about the inadequate width of the main stair, that a baby grand piano would be able to be carried through the entrance.
His music must have supported him through trials and tribulations that were always accepted with humour and forbearance. His attitude appeared stoic, but Nev managed matters, (the typing error 'natters' fits well here too), with a considered ease, happy with life, with the knowledge that he could both cope with and manage anything life might present him with. His country upbringing seemed to have instilled in him a generous and caring acceptance of condition and circumstance.
It is interesting that Nev found a car that could give the same back to him. His stories about his Citroens told of how they never let him down; miraculously, they just kept on going through impossibilities, both thick and thin. It was somewhat appropriate that when I last saw him, he was driving a Smart: the brand matched the man in a nice way, as did the quirky identity. Maybe it was the closest vehicle he could get to Citroen’s 2CV?
The smiling countenance will be missed; that distinctive head of hair; that characteristic sense of 'country' clothing that stood easily in the hubbub of the everyday, concealing a committed and competent talent with a happy contentment that he instilled in others, highlighting the farce of the hype and indulgence of the bespoke architects who promote themselves and their work with a brash, self-centred, slick arrogance that conceals what looks like a careless indifference. Nev was everything these Starchitects aren't, but he was just as good as them; in many ways, he was better. We are left not only with memories, but also an example of how a life should be lived – by building gates and all that this concept means.
One is reminded of Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
. . .
. . . 'Good fences make good neighbors.’
Good fences have gates; Nev knew their value in the making not only of walls, but also of good cities, good buildings, and good friends.
Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
^
https://architectureau.com/articles/queensland-architect-neville-twidale-dies/
#
https://toowoombashs.eq.edu.au/OurSchool/History/Pages/Past-dux-of-school.aspx
*
https://qldarch.net/architect/interview/2542?architectId=247
and
https://qldarch.net/architect/summary?architectId=256
Tributes to Neville Twidale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiEnby08BbI
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0I55AL1yMM
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