Dear Mr Crouch

It is with a heavy heart that we report the passing of Neil Crouch. We send our sympathy and wishes to his dear wife Una Crouch who together with Neil were early settlers of ‘Fussell Street Hill’ and owned much of it. Una remembers when Fussell St was a dirt track that wound around tall gums.

Neil and Una raised their children here and Una recalls how the kids would move between the neighbours homes who also had young kids, living in the country!

Today she recounted a story about how they had to walk to the bottom of the hill in York st just to collect their mail because it was exactly two miles from the post office and the postie refused to go an inch beyond. In fact she thought it was probably due to the hill itself and the fact the postie was on a bicycle.

Neil and Una owned a large area of Fussell Street Hill, in Ballarat East, and sold off parcels to people they knew would look after the area.

Neil was an accountant for many years and was a real stickler for facts and figures working for the last ten years of his working life at Sovereign Hill, after a request that he leave retirement for a one year posting with them. They loved him and so do we of Ballarat East.

Neil was writing letters to the council about over-development and subdivisions and to The Courier about the Civic Hall right to the end, such was his love of this beautiful place.

Ballarat East is silent today in respect, there is not a breath of breeze in the tree-tops, as we remember one of our own.