He was well known around Footscray-Sunshine-Yarraville where he grew up

 

RIP Robert John Woodyard, died aged 72 on 23rd November, 2021. Rob was in my life from age twelve when I lived with my Mum Kaye and two brothers, Ashley and Martin, in Yarraville near Melbourne. He was 25. He was a good friend of my mother’s and he spent a lot of time with me taking me on trips around Melbourne in his work as he was a truck driver over the years for several different companies. He worked for Daffodil at one stage and used to drop off huge cartons of boiled lollies and chocolate coated licorice bullets to us kids. Rob was a big man, he had dirty long blonde hair, he was tall and wiry with wide shoulders and muscled arms and chest, he came in at 6 foot four & he was a good looking bloke. Mum used to have a bungalow that she rented out at the back of our house in Francis Street, Yarraville in the early 1970’s. Two young men, both alcoholics and unemployed bludgers were living there and had stopped paying rent. Rob found out about this when Mum told him. She had no idea what to do. Rob immediately went out the back door and straight down to the main door of the bungalow. We were watching him through the kitchen window. Rob knocked on the door and a very unlucky bloke named Kevin came to the door, his drunken mate Tony was hiding in the bedroom. Kevin was only about 5 foot 6, short black hair, small and wiry and a nasty piece of work that could be violent and loved to bash his girlfriend and abuse her kids. Upon our hapless Kevin opening the door, Rob swiftly grabbed him by the throat, dragged him out of the bungalow and said to him, “you need to pay the rent cunt, and this is what you get for not paying it”. Rob then smashed him right above the left eye with a massive king hit knocking him out cold. Rob pulled him up off the ground & smacked him around the face until he came around, the weak little man started crying. Rob pulled out his wallet and handed the now sobbing Kevin $20 and told him to go to the hospital and get the gaping wound over his eye stitched. Rob didn’t leave it at that though, he went to the front door and yelled, “Hey. Tony, get out here cunt, you’re going to get the same thing”. Tony started crying, he was a tall thin man with a face like a rat and just as nasty, he had abused us kids quite often. Rob told Tony that if the rent was not paid by tomorrow that he was going to cop the same bashing as Kevin did, he sooked like the weasel that he was and promised that the rent would be paid on time and begged Rob not to hurt him. Rob then came back up to the kitchen and laughed, asking Mum and us kids, “How did you like that eh”? The very next day, Tony was up at our place offering to chop the wood for Mum for the hot water boiler whic he duly did, he just couldn't be more helpful, plus he paid the rent and apologised to Mum for nnot paying on time, he was shaking like a leaf as he did so. Rob was a no-nonsense man, but a man with a heart of gold for women and children. He fought often with other men on the streets of Melbourne, he preferred to let his fists do the talking, he loved a drink too, he was often at some pub around the Western Suburbs Melbourne with a few trucky mates and he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. He did however have a wicked sense of humour, he looked exactly like a character in that old British TV show On The Buses, Stan Butler’s mate, Jack Harper and we used to rib him about it. Rob liked the old American Classic cars and he had this old 1958 pink Chevrolet Impala that he stored at his Mum's place in Sunshine, it was in showroom condition. It would be worth a fortuend now. Rob had worked as a used car salesman too in his time because his nickname was "Have a chat", he could talk the leg off a chair and sell ice to Eskimo's. He liked the ladies too and played around a lot. He taught me to fight, or to try to anyway, and he gave me advice and looked after me and my two brothers and my Mum. He took me to the horse races at Flemington once, I was only twelve year old. He put $20 on the nose on this horse at 20/1 and he promised me that if it won he would buy me a new push bike. The horse bolted in, but I didn’t understand what a disease gambling could be at that age. He took all of his winnings and put it on the nose on a horse in the next race and it lost. He blew the lot, and I didn’t get my push bike. I dien't care, I was happy to spend the day with him and watch the horse races. My father had been killed in a car accident when I was just six. Rob ended up moving to Queensland in the 1980’s and ran a fish and chip shop. I stayed in contact with him by phone and on Facebook until he passed away from lung cancer in Hervey Bay, Queensland. I will never forget him. He was a top bloke.