Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Leslie James Beahan was born in Yeppoon on the 24th of January 1924.  His father, also named Leslie, was a policeman and his mother, Ivy, was a nurse.   His only sibling Ailsa was born in 1926. He attended Gregory Terrace School for several years and then moved to the Industrial High School where he completed his Junior Certificate or Year 10 as we know it now, in 1940.

By this time, the world was at war, again, and he joined Evans Deakin as an apprentice fitter and turner in 1942.  Life continued to be tough for this war-time apprentice.  He worked in the dry dock at Kangaroo Point repairing and maintaining battleships, working 12 hour shifts,7 days a week, during the height of the conflict.  As an apprentice he was required to attend college, where his academic record improved.  He obtained honours in Trade Theory, General Science and Welding.  He completed his college studies in November 1945 and completed his apprenticeship in 1946.

Having worked on ships during his apprenticeship; he then decided to become a marine engineer, starting by working on his father’s fishing boat, the “Ailsa”.  He enlisted in the RAAF in March 1947, serving in Richmond, Amberley and Iwakuni, Japan and was discharged in 1949.  He worked as an aircraft fitter, mainly in the technical records section.  He received the Australian Defence medal and Australian Service medal and wore them to this year’s ANZAC Day service, at RSL Treetops.

Returning to civilian life, he continued with his goal to become an engineer, studying and gaining experience working in many different jobs, at the Clayfield ice works, the Giru sugar mill, the whaling station at Tangalooma, Penny’s department store in the Brisbane CBD and reboring car engines, with a company in Brisbane.  His hard work and study paid off, gaining his Engineer’s Certificate in 1952.  This allowed him to take charge of any machinery in Queensland except steam driven winding machinery.

He joined the Queensland Heath Department as a hospital engineer in 1954, initially as Relieving Engineer, filling in for other Engineers while they were on leave.    This took him to hospitals in Toowomba, Royal Brisbane, Goodna, Peel Island, Palm Island and Eventide, Sandgate. 

Mum also worked at Eventide and this is where they met.  They were engaged in 1957, married in 1958 and started a family in 1959. In 1964 he became the assistant engineer at Wolston Park hospital at Goodna.   In 1966 he was transferred to Eventide.  He continued studying, gaining more qualifications, in Building and Horticulture. He also worked two nights a week as the projectionist at Eventide. He retired on his 60th birthday in 1984.

While working and in retirement, he continued to take on new challenges.   His love of working with wood, never left him.  He built much of the furniture in his house and spent hours in his garage making and repairing things made out of wood, metal and leather as well as working on his motorbike.  

He started knitting woollen socks while recovering from a motor cycle accident in 1974.  Deciding that wool was too expensive, he bought a spinning wheel and taught himself to spin and dye wool.  The engineer in him then led him to design and build his own spinning wheel and to make his own wool combs.    He joined spinners and weavers groups, sometimes as their only male member and began selling wool combs, shipping a total of 250 sets to people in South Australia and Queensland.   He knitted socks, jumpers, scarves and shawls.

He also joined a group of steam train enthusiasts at Woodford, putting his engineering skills to good use maintaining and driving steam trains along a kilometre or so of track.   

Over the last few years his health began to fail and in March this year (2015) he moved into the RSL Treetops nursing home at New Farm.   His health continued to decline and he died there peacefully, with two of his children present, on the morning of Thursday the 24th of September. - Peter Beahan