By Casey Neill
A chuckle spilled from the mourners at the funeral for Jack ‘Roy’ Aspinall as the song Camptown Races started to play.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the jolly Dandenong stalwart doing the same.
The Dandenong Retail Traders’ Association founding president lost a near two-year battle with illness on Saturday 3 September, aged 69.
About 70 people gathered to celebrate his life at Le Pine Funerals in Dandenong on Monday 12 September.
Megan Spencer delivered the eulogy for Roy who’d been part of her family for 38 years.
He ran Highway Bowls Centre in Dandenong with her mum Margaret Spencer from 1980 to 2012, and they were also “great friends and social companions”.
Ms Spencer said Roy arrived in Australia with his parents in 1963 with a job as a sports reporter in his sights.
“He loved to tell and retell stories,” she said.
“They were his lifeblood.”
Roy wrote for national and daily newspapers as a journalist for more than 50 years and for several local papers in the last 20 years of his career as a freelancer.
“Roy was still writing only days before he passed,” Ms Spencer said.
Murray Thompson spoke about Roy’s longstanding contribution to the Liberal Party and Ms Spencer read a statement on behalf of former Liberal MP Andrew Robb.
Racing reporting colleague Tim Habel said Roy was known for his meticulous approach to detail.
Fellow Hawks fan Geoff Ablett placed a Hawthorn travel shirt on Roy’s casket.
“I shook every player’s hand wearing that shirt,” he said.
“Farewell one of the greatest guys to ever walk this planet.”
In his final weeks, Roy organised with Melbourne Racing Club to have his ashes scattered at the finishing post at Sandown Racecourse.
“I was there the day it opened. Sandown has been my life,” he said.
