OBITUARY
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WILLIAM Dixon Broadhead, known to all as Bill, was born on March 17, 1937, and as those who met him soon discovered he believed in giving life everything you’ve got.
Bill’s parents Dixon and Isobel split up when he was young and he lived with his father while his sister Sue went with their mother, the two siblings reconnecting 30 years later.
He was raised in Plumbton, West Sydney, where he learnt his gardening skills and was supported by aunties, uncles and grandparents.
Bill’s grandfather - also named William - was the head of Norco, the largest manufacturing company in Australia at the time, who made his fortune by exporting butter to England.
When he turned 14, Bill left Hurlestone Ag College to become an apprentice hairdresser.
As he quickly matched his peers at trimming 14 heads each day he asked for a pay rise, and when it was not forthcoming he walked out of his apprenticeship due to the injustice of not being paid a fair wage for the work done.
Bill met gold-medal ballroom dancer Margot Hartland aged 18, and their four sons Alan, Rod, Murray and Scott were all born before Bill turned 25.
When he was 21 his family moved to Burrawang in the Southern Highlands where Bill worked many jobs, such as cutting timber, dairy farming and running a piggery.
In 1961 he moved to Melbourne to become a hairdresser again, and he discovered judo, which would become a passion for the rest of his life.
Later the family relocated to Moss Vale where he opened his hairdressing store – cutting men and women’s hair – also setting up the Moss Vale International Judo Club.
Experience in cutting hair and sport led him to Chevalier College, cutting the hair of students, teaching judo and training the rugby team, before he was offered a job as a PE teacher there and began studying for a teaching qualification.
While teaching at Chevalier, he developed an Asian Social Studies curriculum and became discipline master at the same time being a champion judo competitor and coach, raising his boys and maintaining his garden and poultry.
After teaching he moved to Quaama to farm Angora goats, as well as working as a bus driver and pathology courier, later working at Tulgeen Disability Services setting up the “work gang” – a working farm and a nursery.
It was at Tulgeen he met his future wife Carole, who was a manager at the service, and the two lived in Tathra for a time.
The couple moved to Bega, where he set up the Phoenix Flower Farm to grow Australian natives and during this time co-founded the South Coast Producers Association, as well as establishing the inaugural Alternative Farming Pavilion at the Royal Easter Show.
Bill had strong community spirit.
He was part of the Progress Association in Quaama, was a member of the day branch of the Labour Party, served as the President of the Murrah Day Branch of the ALP, was part of many permaculture open days and served on the board of Sertec.
Being active members of the community led him and Carole to be awarded a Spirit of Anzac award in 2002.
In 2006, Bill was inducted into the Australasian Martial Arts Hall of Fame, as his skills in judo had taken him to compete and train around Australia and the world.
“My father was a true believer, a dreamer never shy to express his feelings or opinions whether you wanted them or not,” his son Murray said.
“A very generous man, rich in knowledge and always willing to share that knowledge.
“He said it how it was, about truth not appearances.
“He let the world see the true person he was, true to himself.
“He instilled a strong sense of self-belief, to be proud of who you are and where you come from.”
In his later stages of life, Bill spent his time in Bermagui as grandfather to 13 and great-grandfather to four descendants.
In 1992, Bill wrote a letter to Carole on her birthday that read: “To my most beautiful woman on her birthday – When the strengths and desires of the flesh diminish in our twilight years we will find our love still strong in a tranquil place surrounded by nature and the beauty we have developed”.
Bill passed away at home surrounded by family on September 29, aged 77.