Robot Claw

If life is made up of only happy memories, then I’m proud to say many of mine include my dearest cousin Troy Sheely.

Tragically Troy passed away a couple of days ago. He was only 39 years old.

Troy was the eldest son of my uncle Peter, and he was closer in age to me than even my brother. When we were kids, our families would very often spend time together, and since the four of us (me, Bernard, Troy and his younger brother Ryan) got along like houses on fire these were some of the best times of our young lives.

On a practical level, we loved ‘going to Troy’s house’ since he had all the cool toys we didn’t, such as vast amounts of Star Wars action figures and (a bit later on) an Atari with a bunch of games. But even more than that (and I probably didn’t realize it at the time), I loved spending time with Troy since he and I were interested in the same sorts of things, and even as young boys could play together and talk about silly boys things for hours.

I’ve got so many memories from those years, all of which feature him prominently. Troy was always in a good mood, he was always welcoming and he always generous. He was enthusiastic as well, and I remember he was the sort of boy who would speak faster and louder when he was passionate about something. He was a funny guy who laughed at his own jokes even before he had finished telling them!

He was young and strong and always smiling and he was unique. I looked up to Troy in many ways, and I was proud to have him as my cousin.

As we aged and outgrew the toys, and became interested in such things as grades and school and girls, we saw each other less. However we were still cousins and more than that friends, and the times we did see each other were often memorable.

I remember well one time in our mid teens, him taking me (and Bernard?) on a long walk because he knew of a pinball machine in an abandoned building. We got there and climbed in a window (yes, this was probably illegal) only to find the machine was non-functioning. As we were deciding what to do – and yes, as teenagers I’m sure one impossible option was ‘How do we get it home with us?’ – we were spooked by voices outside and ran away!

There was also the time, probably when we were about 15 or 16, when I went with him on a quest to some guys house in response to a classified advert selling comics. I don’t remember details, only that Troy asked me to go with him and was looking for very specific issues of a certain comic (Spiderman?). We caught the bus, found the house, and then spent a few uncomfortable moments with a very creepy old man who had thousands of comics and wanted to sell them all in one go for an insanely high price! We had a good laugh about that misunderstanding.

And then there was the time during my early college years I ran into him in a bar in Newcastle late one night and over the next couple of hours watched him, with some amusement, impress my male friends and charm the female ones. That was Troy in a nutshell: outgoing, social, impossible not to like.

I last saw Troy three years ago. It was the first time I had seen him in many, many years. He was older, and wiser, and the father of three beautiful kids. We chatted briefly about life and family and work and kids before he surprised me. He told me he read my blog, and he particularly enjoyed my posts about games. What followed was a lengthy discussion of video games (he was an avid collector) and action figures (again, an avid collector) and movies. In essence, we were having the same sort of discussion we may have had 30 years prior as young boys.

Although Troy’s eyes may have had a couple of wrinkles around them, they still held that same sparkle I remembered so well. The years had just melted away, and here was the very same Troy Sheely that had helped make my life so much fun as a child, and who featured in so many of my happy memories.

This is the Troy Sheely I will remember always.

I’ve been on TV certainly three times, and maybe four, that I know of. These were back in the dark days before PVR’s and the internet, and any chance of any of this being recorded was slim. Therefore I doubt any footage exists these days, which is a shame since I’d love to put it on the blog!

Amusingly, all three appearances were relatively close together, occurring within maybe a year of each other. The ‘first’ (see below) was in 1989, back when I was School Captain of SFX and looked like this:

There I am, looking snappy in my school uniform, hair gelled up and ears sticking out. Looking at this now, it’s remarkable how different I look…

Anyway, the responsibilities of the School Captains extended beyond the schoolyard, and both me and the girl captain (Joanne H) were frequently required to represent the school at various ceremonies and activites. I quite enjoyed this, even when I was expected to give a speech (which happened several times during the year). One such event was the dawn Anzac Day ceremony in Civic Park, Newcastle. Here’s a photo I found online of the same event held in 2009:

Back in 1989 it was held at exactly the same place, and the crowds were about the same size. I had to give a speech representing the next generation, thanking the oldies for their sacrifice in foreign wars. I dimly recall having essentially full control over the content of my speech (which I’m sure now was full of cliche and platitude) and barely doing any rehearsal. Before I spoke a girl captain from another school gave a very brief speech which I thought was awful. I’m sure mine wasn’t actually any better!

At any rate the NBN TV cameras were there, and a brief snippet of me speaking (probably the choicest platitude!) made it onto the evening news. I saw it at the time, as did many of my friends, but have no recollection of how I felt. I also believe I was interviewed at the ceremony by a newspaper reported, but if my name or comments ever appeared in print I have no idea.

Fast forward a bit, to the annual NBN telethon held later that year. Looking back on it now, the telethon was a quaint (and nowadays completely obsolete) way to raise money, but I used to enjoy it as a kid because you’d never know which ‘celebrity’ they’d wheel out next. Our school had raised quite a bit of money (including via a treasure hunt, which probably requires a blog entry of it’s own) and since I was both the captain and the guy who had organized much of the fund-raising it transpired I would go to the telethon to hand over a cheque live on the air.

So Joanne and I went, in the evening if I recall, in our school uniforms. We were both amused by how utterly hectic everything was backstage, but there must have been some order to the madness since at the alloted time we were pushed guided in front of the cameras and I said something empty and handed a cheque to the then-weatherman of the channel.

That photo is from 1997, but it’s more or less what I recall. Knowing NBN, it’s probably the same set! I remember after we got off the air (which lasted maybe 30 seconds) we were just ignored, and weren’t even really sure where to go. Joanne was a bit starstruck since there were a lot of pseudo-celebrities walking around, but they all ignored us as well.

Anyway, many, many people saw this appearance. For weeks I was hearing “Oh I saw you on the telethon!” from all and sundry. Those days were probably the height of my fame 🙂

The next appearance was in many ways simultaneously the worst and the best. It would have been in early 1990, during the very, very brief period of my 18th year when I drunk alcohol. Once again, NBN television was the culprit. On Friday and Saturday nights they had a roving crew that would go around the pubs and bars of Newcastle filming revelers and putting the funny stuff on TV between music videos in the early hours of the morning. As it happens, one time this film crew stopped a bunch of young drunken miscreants walking down Hunter Street, and one of them (who bore a startling resemblance to me) apparently raised aloft the giant bottle of brew he was carrying, open-bottle-style, and was heard to bellow: “I am the beast of bourbon!”

And this was filmed and went out on TV.

I never saw it. In fact almost no-one I knew did. Doubtless most of them at that point were either with me, or in a similar state elsewhere. I don’t think any of my family saw it, since they were probably all in bed. But amusingly, the mother of a friend of mine did see it, and this is how knowledge of the clip being aired got back to me. I don’t remember being filmed, although I don’t doubt it happened. I wish I could have seen it though. Thank god I wasn’t still school captain then (this was my first year of Uni), else Brother K may have had a stern word!

So those are my three certain TV claims-to-fame. But what of the fourth?

Well in Australia there was a beloved children’s show called Play School, and somewhere in my mind I wonder if I was ever on it? If I was I can’t remember, and I don’t actually remember anyone telling me I was. However for some reason the possibility exists in my mind that I may have been, so I’ll let an expert weigh in on the comments if that was indeed the case.