The Distel family
Derek Blundell Distel
Caulfield, 5 August 1939 - Woori Yallock, 6 October 2008
Twenty-two years in the Royal Australian Air Force, then a country grocer and a builder of his own houses, and the man who wrote this family’s history down.
Derek & Pat with eldest Girl in Richmond April 1965 before Europa tour. Cropped from the family group.
He was the eldest of the three children of Willi Distel, the diarist, and Doris Blundell. He was born at Caulfield a month before the war began, and ten years old when his father sold up the hairdressing business and moved them all to a general store at Walpa, in East Gippsland. His parents’ marriage ended there, and he stayed on with his father.
At the end of his schooling his father collected him, drove him to the
hairdressing shop he was by then running at Koo Wee Rup, and put him out to live
alone in a twelve-foot-square shed on the family block at Ferntree Gully. A
neighbour got him started at Commonwealth Aircraft, and that settled the rest of
his life: Aircraft are my love, always has been.
He walked out of the
apprenticeship in his fourth year after his father went back on a deal over an
apprentice pilot’s licence, conducted trams for a year, and in August 1960
enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force.
He served twenty-two years: service number A315215, airframe fitter to Warrant Officer Engineer. Richmond and Kurrajong in New South Wales; East Sale in Gippsland; Hawker Siddeley at Manchester for the HS748, and the ferry flight home; two and a half years with 75 Squadron at Butterworth in Malaysia; and a long stint at Support Command in Melbourne he never much liked. He came out in 1982 with the Defence Force Service Medal and First Clasp, and the National Medal, both long-service awards. He saw no combat.
Afterwards he and Pat bought a run-down supermarket at Beaufort, west of Ballarat, and built it up: he knew the business end, she knew the customers. He built his own house at Mooroolbark with sub-contractors on his long service leave, and a kit home on twenty acres of old gold country at Mainlead. He married Patricia Lorraine Coleman in 1959, when he was nineteen and a tram conductor, and they were still married when he died forty-nine years later. They had four children, Colan, Cheryl, Judy and William, and seven grandchildren.
He is this archive’s genealogist. The family tree these pages rest on is his research, as are the meticulous address and employment logs that make it possible to date his own life to the month. In his own words:
It’s the family that we come from; you have to record that sort of thing, it’s wrong not to.
What he left
His life in dates
Caulfield and Walpa, 1939-1954
- 5 Aug 1939
Born at Caulfield, Melbourne, eldest of three; the family home in Bambra Rd, Caulfield. Christened at the Church of England, Caulfield, that October, the date recorded by his mother.
- 1941, 1943
His brother Alan and sister Kay born, both at Caulfield.
- Mid 1940s
An aunt and uncle arrive from Europe; the house is too small, and the two boys sleep in cloth tents in the backyard for nearly six months, starting at Christmas.
BORN 5 AUG 1939 - OCT 6 2008 DEREK BLUNDELL DISTEL.
- Sep 1949
The family moves to Walpa, East Gippsland, where his father buys the general store from the Hebes, a business of nearly a hundred years, twelve miles out of Bairnsdale on Skull Creek. Derek is ten.
- c.1952
Taken out to the Aboriginal encampment at Denanogan, on a creek running into the Mitchell River:
a special, magical place
. - c.1952-53
His mother leaves Walpa, taking Alan and Kay and leaving Derek with his father.
It wasn’t a good decision. I was about thirteen or fourteen years old at the time.
- 1953-1954
Bairnsdale Technical School: Junior Tech, then Intermediate,
which was as far as you could go
. Boarding school in Gippsland belongs somewhere in these years; its name is not recorded anywhere. - Late 1954
Leaves school. His father takes him to the hairdressing shop at Koo Wee Rup and puts him out to live alone in a 12ft by 12ft shed at Ferntree Gully.
Sheet metal, courtship and marriage, 1955-1960
- 12 Jan 1955
Begins his apprenticeship at Commonwealth Aircraft, Fishermans Bend, in aircraft sheet metal.
Aircraft are my love, always has been.
- c.1955-56
Meets Pat Coleman at a dance at the Coburg Town Hall, and chases her up the stairs at a town hall the following weekend; they never agreed on which one. Five years of courtship.
- Dec 1958
Walks out of the apprenticeship in his fourth year, a year short, after his father goes back on a deal over the apprentice pilot’s licence. A short and unsuccessful spell selling books follows.
- 30 Jan 1959
Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board, Preston, as a tram conductor.
- 4 Jul 1959
Marries Patricia Lorraine Coleman at the Presbyterian church, Regent. He is nineteen, and gives his occupation as tram conductor. Their first home of their own is a one-room flat in Young St, Preston.
- 1959
Their son Colan born. Pat is brought out of hospital early because her mother is dying; she dies about three weeks later.
- 1960
Sheetmetal worker, book salesman, press operator: four jobs in six months, and the family living with Pat’s father and brothers in Banool St, East Preston. Before that he had boarded around the northern suburbs: Donne St in West Coburg, Murray Rd and Killara St in East Preston, Rubicon St in Reservoir.
The Royal Australian Air Force, 1960-1982
Service number A315215. Twenty-two years, enlistment to discharge.
- 8 Aug 1960
Enlists as an Aircraftman; passes the trade test for airframe fitter and is posted to 1 Recruit Training Unit, Rathmines, New South Wales. Two days later he makes his RAAF will, appointing Pat sole executor and beneficiary.
- 24 Oct 1960
Posted 2 Aircraft Depot, RAAF Richmond, servicing Hercules and Neptune aircraft. The family rents
Rosen Dhu
on Comleroy Rd, Kurrajong, from Mrs McMahon, the neighbour who quietened the crying baby with a sip of brandy, then the Packing Shed further along the same road.Burnt down after we left.
Aircraft were the love of my life.
- Aug 1961
Passes the trade test: Leading Aircraftman, airframe fitter.
- 1962, 1964
Daughters Cheryl and Judy born at Richmond.
- 1 Jun 1965
Promoted Corporal, a promotion he took specifically to get the next posting.
- 12 Jul 1965
Posted Maintenance Squadron, RAAF East Sale. Drives the family and his half-built twenty-foot boat down the Princes Highway, burning out the trailer brakes at Wollongong. They rent part of the old hotel on the Princes Highway at Stratford, then move into RAAF married quarters in Leslie St, Sale. He founds the Gemstone Club in Sale somewhere in these years.
- Jun-Aug 1968
Attached to RAAF Staff, London, for HS748 training: sixty-five days at Hawker Siddeley. On leave he flies Manchester to Zurich and meets his German family for the first time: his uncle Bernhard, his aunt Agnes, and his cousins Ludwig and Albrecht, at Villingen. He travelled
off the card
, the official leave application having come unstuck. - 1968
The near-miss. A flight from England to Zurich crashes: the one he had been booked on, having flown a day early. Pat hears it on the news at Sale before she hears he is safe.
- 1 May 1969
Promoted Sergeant while at Hawker Siddeley, Manchester, on the ferry flight bringing the sixth HS748 home.
- 9 Dec 1969
Posted to Support Command, Melbourne, the desk job he disliked. In May 1970 they buy their first house, in Messmate Rd, Ferntree Gully, for $8,500, and he commutes by train from Boronia or Bayswater.
- 27 Jul 1972
His father Willi dies at Parkville, aged 66.
- 1973
Their son William born at Upper Ferntree Gully,
completely out of sequence
. - 26 Mar 1974
Posted 75 Squadron, RAAF Butterworth, Malaysia, on Mirages, after eighteen days of Mirage training at Williamtown. Married quarters at the Vale of Tempe, Penang: the amah, the rock pool, the Cameron Highlands, and the
stinky ferry
across to the base. Two and a half years. - Sep 1976
Returns to Melbourne and back into the Ferntree Gully house, which the tenant had left in poor order.
- Oct 1977
Moves into a house he built in Lansell Rd, Mooroolbark: twenty-four squares, designed with an architect he then sacked for double-dipping, and built by himself on long service leave. He finished the in-ground pool himself too, after the pool builder went bust.
- 1 Mar 1979
Promoted Flight Sergeant, years later than it should have been, delayed by an altercation with a senior officer at Butterworth.
- 1979-1980
Second NCO, then NCO in charge, of the Boeing 707 project at Support Command.
- 1980
His first grandchild, Michael Distel, born at Box Hill: Cheryl’s son.
- 1 Mar 1982
Promoted Warrant Officer, and remustered Warrant Officer Engineer.
- 23 Apr 1982
Moves to Mellowood Crt, Ferntree Gully.
- 7 Aug 1982
Discharged on termination of period of enlistment, after twenty-two years. Awarded the Defence Force Service Medal with First Clasp and the National Medal.
Both medals are long-service awards, not campaign or gallantry
awards: fifteen years’ service for each, with a clasp for every further five.
He had re-engaged twice, in 1972 and 1977, and in 1982 simply let the third term
run out. I knew I was going to be discharged and at this time I was offered all
the promotions in the world, but the kids didn’t want to travel anymore.
Beaufort - the shopkeeping years, 1982-1994
- 15 Nov 1982
Buys the Foodmaster supermarket in Neil St, Beaufort, a run-down store he and Pat believed they could build up. It later became a Foodworks. They rent a house in Speke St in the town, then Trawalla Estate. William, then nine, moves with them and buses to school in Ballarat.
- Nov 1986
Moves into the kit home he built himself at Troy’s Lane, Mainlead: twenty acres on a dirt road, in old gold country, good for agates.
- 1987, 1988
Judy marries at Mooroolbark, the wedding he
virtually had to carry her down the aisle
for, and Colan marries at Daylesford,on an extremely hot January day
. - Feb 1988
Sells the supermarket. The following year he takes on the milk bar and takeaway further along Neil St.
- 1992
Cheryl and her son move in at Beaufort and he takes the boy on, starting him at the secondary college there.
Woori Yallock and retirement, 1994-2008
- by Sep 1994
Living at Eileen Grove, Woori Yallock, in the Yarra Valley, the house he would die in, fourteen years later.
- 1995-1998
Genealogy correspondence with his cousin Albrecht at Villingen: faxes in 1995 and 1997, email by 1998. The trees he built in these years are the ones this archive is founded on.
- 1997
The long European holiday: two and a half months, end of March to early June. Three weeks in Germany with the cousins, then France, the Channel Tunnel, Piccadilly, Cornwall, Scotland, Wales, and by ferry to Wexford, where he and Pat went round the churches researching her family in person.
- 8 May 2000
The last modification date on his genealogy files, the work that became the database behind these pages.
- c.2006
Metastatic prostate cancer diagnosed, on top of ten years of diabetes.
- 9 Apr 2008
Signs the Eastern Palliative Care biography consent form, two years into the illness, and begins dictating his life story to volunteer biographer Jane Lamb. It is taped and transcribed at home over six months; her counter-signature is dated 9 September.
- c.Jul 2008
A holiday at Longreach, Queensland: rocks, fossils and opals. In the second week his health collapses and he needs a wheelchair. He never gets back downstairs to his workshop.
- Sep-Oct 2008
Pat cares for him at home for the last month, as he wanted.
- 6 Oct 2008
Dies at home in Eileen Grove, Woori Yallock, aged 69.
- 10 Oct 2008
Funeral at the Lilydale Memorial Park chapel. His granddaughter opens the service playing Time to Say Goodbye; Colan gives the family tribute; Albert Grulke of the Yarra Junction RSL reads the RSL tribute and lays the first poppy. The Last Post, Reveille, the piper’s lament, and Danny Boy. Cremated; his memorial plaque is in the Rose Garden at Lilydale.
- Nov 2008
His biography is published by Eastern Palliative Care, one month after his death.
After
- 6 May 2024
Pat dies at Ringwood East, aged 86, sixty-four years and ten months after they married.
- 28 May 2026
Their daughter Cheryl dies at Lynbrook.
About this page
The dates here are not the memoir’s. Pat left a note on the family copy recording that Derek got facts wrong because he was ill and confused when he dictated it. She was right: the events are sound, the dates drift. The chronology above is built instead on his own address and employment log, kept in his genealogy software and current to September 1994, written while he was well, together with his RAAF eulogy, the certificates and the funeral programme.
Where the records disagree they are recorded rather than smoothed over. His
eulogy has him enlisting at Wagga; his own sealed will envelope, endorsed
1 RTU RAAF Rathmines
and dated two days after he enlisted, settles it the
other way.
Addresses are given as the records give them; none of these houses is a current family home. The birth dates of living people are given as the year only. The memoir is reproduced as he published it.