By Kath Gannaway
NINETY not out! And that’s not Harry Blenheim’s best score by a long shot.
In recent years ‘Young’ Harry, as he is known around Healesville, has earned a bit of a reputation as a poet – a writer of ditties – many of them published in Mountain Views over the years.
His poem ‘My Town’ won the editor’s award with the International Library of Poetry.
In his younger days, however, Harry was widely recognised as one of the best cricketers in the Yarra Valley. His cricketing achievements often crop up in ‘Pages of the Past’. Just two years ago, the Mail highlighted his ongoing cricketing success when he was chosen in the Eastern Suburbs Cricket League’s Team of the Century.
Harry came to Healesville 54 years ago with his late wife, Joyce. Their three daughters, Sandra, Loris and Jenny, grew up in the town.
“The Girls”, as Harry calls them, organised a 90th birthday celebration at the Healesville RSL on Saturday, 4 February.
“It was a bit of awright,” Harry says with his trademark understatement.
The girls presented their dad with a trophy of a batsman engraved “Young Harry – 90 not out” and Jenny, who he says has inherited his love of poetry, wrote this special tribute:
Well Dad your 90th Birthday is here
There’ll be lots of good wishes and plenty of cheer.
You have batted and bowled along in style,
With your humour and wit, you’re in front by a mile.
You have never been stumped for a story or a joke,
With Tom, Dick and Harry, there’s always still hope.
Your love of cricket has been your whole life,
Along with your three girls and your wife.
Over the years your family has grown by the score,
With six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, there’s still room for more.
Special Birthday wishes will be our biggest pitch,
To an incredible Dad, we would never switch.
Sort of says it all. But the last word goes to Harry.
“I have a little motto about life,” he says. “Eatin’, walkin’ and talkin’.
“That’s my life, more or less. I eat well and naturally, I talk well and walking is the best part of all,” he confided.
“I know half of Healesville and it’s never a lonely walk.”
’Young’ Harry Blenheim, pictured on his 90th birthday with his biggest fans, daughters Jenny Manneke-Jones, Loris Anderson and Sandra Fisher.
