Vale Reg Excell, August 11, 1938 to October 23, 2022

Reg Excell was known around the Phillip Island for his extensive community work, including fundraising for the Good Friday Appeal and Rotary.

What some local residents didn’t know, however, is that he helped build the Phillip Island bridge, even surviving a serious fall during its construction.

Reg was born in Middlesex England just before World War II.

A sad start to life as he was soon in a boys’ home. Some time later he was taken into the care of an aunt in London.

One of his earliest recollections was of bombs being dropped on London. Somehow he was later reunited with his father, but the relationship with his step-mother was disappointing.

He became aware of the “Big Brother Movement” – (this Australian non-government organisation brought many teenage boys to Australia for fresh opportunities from 1925 to 1982, wartime excepted).

In 1954, 16-year-old Reg bade his father farewell and came to Australia.

After orientation he had placements on farms in NSW, an initial unfortunate one but then things improved.

Working on the land suited him and he became a gun shearer, which brought him to Phillip Island.

Here he met a lovely local lass from a long-established local family. Reg and Helen Forrest married in 1963. The newly-weds travelled briefly together on the shearing circuit and then made their home in Newhaven.

Bridge

Soon after there was a shearers' strike and Reg found himself working on the new bridge connecting Phillip Island to the mainland.

Reg miraculously survived an horrendous fall but was seriously injured.

He slipped in the wet on a steel girder, and fell 25 feet down into the cylinder hole.

It could have been worse. His fall was broken by a steel girder, preventing him dropping another 20 feet.

These were times when workplace health and safety was not taken seriously and financial support for the injured was lacking.

Unconscious, his workmates wrapped him in a straitjacket, and he was attached to a crane line and hoisted out.

He suffered compressed fractures of four vertebrae, and a badly injured leg.

But Reg defied the odds and slowly recovered.

He did return to shearing but pain made the work challenging so he resorted to a range of other local employment.

Helen and Reg ran a gift shop and information centre in Cowes and expanded this to include a travel agency, then later concentrated on just the travel business.

Reg re-established contact with his father and found that in addition to older sister Dianne there was also a younger sister Barbara.

Through his estranged mother, there were another five half siblings – three boys and two girls. As for his father there were another four half siblings – three boys and a girl. The relationship with known family members became loving and strong and his father ventured to Australia on two occasions.

Community work

Reg joined Rotary some 30 years ago. He served as president in 1993. One particular passion was the op shop. Helen as great organiser with rostering and shop management and Reg as the go-to saviour whenever there was a physical problem or a staffing shortfall.

Helen was the official Phillip Island Good Friday Appeal delegate.

Collection tins did not just mysteriously appear in shops for weeks/months before then being collected – it was Reg Excell doing the hard yards, possibly invisible to many.

Reg and Helen contributed as a team. Reg served the community as a Justice of the Peace, held office in the Masonic Lodge and became an avid member of the bowls club.

At home he was quite a gardener. 

Above all he was a committed husband, proud father of Kym, Craig and Gavin, a loving grandparent and great grandparent.

Based on an obituary written by Russell Riseley for the Rotary Club newsletter. Russell and Reg were long time members of the Phillip Island Rotary Club and each served as president.