National Grandparents Day

We Celebrated Our Grandparents at Bopp & Tone

Bopp & Tone is tribute to Applejack founder’s grandparents, Keith ‘Bopp’ Evans &  Anthony ‘Tone’ Adams.

National Grandparents Day was on Sunday the 27th of October and we encouraged everyone to celebrate the important role our grandparents play in our lives & society.

“Bopp & Tone is a node to our grandfathers, who symbolise and embody the iconic and nostalgic Sydney of the past, which is reflected in the venue”~ Directors Ben Carroll & Hamish Watts

In light of National Grandparents Day, we asked Ben & Hame to share their fondest memories of the their grandfathers.

Bopp~ Grandfather of Hamish Watts

“My fondest memories of Bopp are from when I was a kid living in the North Shore of Sydney. Bopp and Hester (Grandma) were around a lot and always played a big part in making growing up a big fun adventure.

One of my most vivid memories is when Bopp would take us down to Balmoral to go fishing. He had made a dingy out of ply wood with a small two stroke motor on the back and used a reconstructed old golf buggy to tow it around. He would pick my brother, Angus, and I up in a Volkswagon Beetle with the handmade trailer & dingy towing along behind. However, instead of making us sit in the car with seatbelts, he would let us ride in the boat on the trailer while he flew down Mandolong Road to Balmoral Bay.

We would then unload the dingy to Balmoral Bay and spend the day out on the water catching whiting to take it home and eat for breakfast the following morning.

It’s such a fond memory that has stuck with me all my life”.

Tone~ Grandfather of Ben Carroll

“The greatest times I spent with Grandpa are the more recent ones. Whilst he has always played a big part in my life, it wasn’t until I grew older that I really understood how much of a hero Grandpa is.

Like most veterans Grandpa never spoke about his time in the war, however over the last decade he has started to embrace and, more importantly, be proud of his role in WW2. When he tells me one of the many stories of his time as a Wireless Radio Controller in the Bomber Command I hang off every word- his memories of his time in the war are so vivid!

There were 10,000 Australians enrolled in the Bomber Command and of that 40% were Killed In Action, leaving 6,000 to return. Grandpa was one of the lucky ones. At the age of 96, he is one of the few hundred Australians who served in the Bomber command still alive today. He was 21 when he returned from the war.

Grandpa recently told me a story about a late night rations drop to the front line. His wireless radio had gone down which left the plane without communications, this was not generally a big concern so the crew decided to continue on. Grandpa, who is not technically minded, tried all he could to get the radio back on; turning it off and back on, banging it… all the simple things! But nothing worked. Magically at the last minute the radio came back to life and with that a Morse code from the base asking the plane to abort the mission and immediately return to base. On returning to base he found out that there was intel that the enemy were about to shoot down the plane with ground to air missiles. He has been about 3km from being shot out of the air. This is one of the many stories where Grandpa has a whole lot of luck on his side.

Grandpa thinks he’s boring me when he tells me stories but that couldn’t be further from the truth! While we share many beautiful memories together, the memories he shares with me are my favourite.”

A little quote for those who cannot spend today with their grandparents:

“The history of our grandparents is remembered not with rose petals but in laughter and tears of their children and their children’s children. It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone. It is in us that their history becomes a future” ~ Charles And Ann Morse