Vale Barry Lawn

BARRY Lawn passed away yesterday afternoon at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle.

Barry Lawn at the 2014 Aberdeen Highland Games

Mr Lawn was a well-known local identity who was the longest serving president of the Aberdeen Highland Games.

He had been flown from Scone’s Scott Memorial Hospital by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter on Tuesday following a stroke and neurological complications: Medical Transfer.

Mr Lawn was in his early 70’s and had been unwell for a number of years with chronic emphysema.

Good friend, Charles Cooke said Barry had put an enormous amount of time into the Highland Games and St Luke’s Church, including serving on the church Council.

“Barry was a chap who spent a lot of his life driving vehicles, mainly heavy transport I think his father had a business and he went into that and he spent his early life carting coal and grain and oats and those sorts of things,” said Mr Cooke.

“He came to the upper Hunter in about 35 to 4 years ago and he worked on the land up around Timor and then he moved into Scone and in recent times he’s been a bus driver, he drove quite a number of the school buses in the area,” he said.

“He worked at Scone Spare Parts and he had a small block at Parkville where he rang sheep and cattle,” he said.

Mr Cooke said most of the time he spent with Barry was through the Aberdeen Highland Games.

“He was in his youth a Scottish country dancer and he danced at national level and he taught local school children to dance,” said Mr Cooke.

“At one stage at the Scone Grammar School he and Lindsay Fry were teaching Scottish dancing and also Vicky French from Muswellbrook,” he said.

“He put a lot back into the community in general,” he said.

“He did some teaching at the Aberdeen primary school and those children then performed at the Highland Games.

“He was instrumental in talking with John Tobin at St Joseph’s to get a pipe band started at the school,’ he said.

“Since the Highland Games he was a member of the Scone RSL Pipes and Drums and when he was with the band he was the drum major,” Charles Cooke said.

George Souris former local state member of Parliament, Barry Lawn president of the Aberdeen Highland Games and Joel Fitzgibbon local federal member of Parliament.

Charles stepped in as president of the Games last year as Barry began to slow down.

“He was able to get to the Australian Defence Force and organise for the Federation Guard come to the Games and they came for four or five years and the only reason we missed out last time was because they were doing the centenary of the ANZAC’s,” he said.

“It’s been a great lift to the area and he’ll be greatly missed,” he said.

Barry Lawn is survived by his wife Sue, children and grandchildren.