Margaret Tonkin was my mother and I think her most outstanding quality was loyalty. She would never say a thing against anyone, no matter what the circumstances. I think my first memories of mum as a person was the intense bond she had with her brothers and sisters and her mother. I imagine that this bond was increased on the trip out from Scotland and then attending school. She loved to tell us how at school her classmates would always ask her to speak Scots. She would come back with " I dinnae ken, I dinnae ken". My aunt told how she won a doll on the fancy dress night while they were on the boat coming out. Her father dressed her as a Scottish Lassie in a kilt and little shoes with big buckles made of bottle tops and she won first prize. She must have had quite a lot of pluck as they went to New Britain straight after the war and my brother Edward was the first baby born in the Rabaul hospital. Things were extremely primitive and Dad even had to build the house they lived in. She loved being there and Mum and Dad returned for a further six years in 1963. While there the second time, Mum became in volved in the Girl Guides. When Mum and Dad returned to the family home at North Manly, she devoted even more time to Guiding as she loved it. As Mum and Dad had more time with all the family grown up and grandchildren starting to arrive, they started travelling. They went around Australia 8 times and went on many many trips overseas as the travel bug really bit them. After Dad died Mum moved to Broadwater Court at Kincumber and she loved it and had 9 very happy years there. The last two years of her life were spent at Matthew John Nursing Home at Erina and again she was happy. The staff responded to her lovely personality and made her stay there happy. I know Mum will be missed by not just her family but her friends.