William Aiden Durack

AN architect whose pioneering family is the stuff of legends in outback Australia has died in Toowoomba aged 92.
Bill Durack died on September 30 after a short illness.
He was the last surviving grandchild of Patsy Durack, who came to Australia from Ireland in 1853.
In the iconic Kings in Grass Castles, Bill's sister Dame Mary Durack told the story of Patsy and his family, including Bill's father Michael Patrick Durack. It is a story typical of many Australian families who followed in the footsteps of the explorers to bring cattle and sheep to the vast Outback.
The Duracks in their legendary cattle drives - and later business journeys - throughout the length and breadth of rural Australia, played an essential role in carrying the stories from one station property to the next.
Even when two-way radios and telephones started to connect the most remote cattle stations, there were many for whom news did not become real until a passing traveller sitting on the veranda would say, ``I saw old Tom the cook from Ivanhoe station last week as I was passing through Wyndham. He can't get around much anymore but sends his regards.''
In the decade or two before her death in 1994, Bill's sister Mary travelled extensively to visit a huge network of family and friends. Gatherings such as the opening of the Stockman's Hall of Fame and the Dame Mary Durack Outback Craft Awards have continued to bring together people from Australian pioneering families.
As a prolific and entertaining storyteller and letter writer, Bill played his part in keeping the family and its traditions together.
In more than 50 years as an architect and town planner based in Toowoomba, Bill designed fine schools, churches and homes throughout southeast Queensland.
As a member of the board of Advanced Education he influenced the architecture of tertiary colleges during the 1970s and 1980s.
With his friend Reg Williams he played a pivotal role in the development of the Longreach Stockman's Hall of Fame, supported historical heritage sites such as the Jondaryan Woolshed and looked to the future through his long term role with the Toowoomba CBD.
He remained an active member of the Toowoomba Architects' Group until shortly before his death.
Bill was an avid reader and scholar of history and understood the importance of the arts in a civilised society.
Bill was part of Toowoomba's ``coming of age'' as a modern cultural city in the 1960s and 70s. He was chairman of the committee that organised Toowoomba's Gemini Arts Festival in 1972 and was chairman of the Toowoomba Chamber Music Society for more than 20 years.
Bill was strongly opposed to violence and cruelty, particularly in the form of war. Rather than enlist in World War II he chose to go to the Kimberley in 1941 to help his brother Kim establish the Ord River Research Station.
Kim, who trained as an agricultural scientist, was one of Australia's first environmental idealists.
He saw the damage done to the Kimberley by his father's cattle and hoped to find a more sustainable way of using that beautiful but challenging country. Bill and Kim planted the first irrigated crops in the Kimberley and identified their huge potential.
Bill and Kim found and surveyed the site for the Ord River Dam but also anticipated the extraordinary difficulties northern farming would face and counselled caution in the face of political pressure for precipitate development.
Bill will be sadly missed by his wife of 65 years, Noni Durack and his five sons. They will remember him as a man who was loving, generous, fair, open-minded and whose capacity to entertain and amuse seemed inexhaustible.
A funeral service will be held today in Toowoomba at St Thomas Moore's Church.