Peter May

• Peter's Second House
• Peter's Third House

Funeral

Funeral service held at Orbost, Victoria, with family, friends, former students, and livestream viewers gathering to honour Peter's life. Music was central — Vivaldi, Mozart, Leonard Cohen, the Beatles — reflecting his lifelong passion for playing, teaching, and sharing music.

Mary, his wife of 60 years, described meeting Peter on New Year's Day when she was 16. He failed matriculation on his first attempt, repeated at Ringwood High, then earned a teaching place after she suggested primary education. At Toorak Teachers College he thrived as SRC representative, photographer, and magazine editor. He learned clarinet, guitar, and violin, and through sheer determination taught himself to sing in tune. During the Vietnam War he drove the getaway van for draft evader Harry Van Morst, risking prison for his pacifist convictions. His first posting was Cabbage Tree Creek in 1973, beginning a life of remote East Gippsland teaching. There he and Mary built a log cabin, learned to butcher sheep and tan hides, built a mud brick shack, and Peter delivered their son Andrew at home. Later posts included Numerala, where he launched a ukulele program that played live on ABC radio, and Goongra, where he organised a school trip to Cambodia. Parkinson's disease, diagnosed after malaria exacerbated his symptoms, slowly took its toll. Mary and Peter separated but remained caring friends to the end; as Peter quipped, "We married for better or worse. It just got a lot worse and it was better to live apart." In his own words: "I cared. The phone call was not long... She cared." Despite his illness he volunteered at the Slab Hut, continued cycling (switching to an electric bike, then a trike), and never stopped his mindfulness and physiotherapy. To the end he was defined by what he could do, not what he couldn't.

His brothers painted a picture of an inventive, generous sibling. Robin recalled the Hillman Minx with faux fur interior and Peter's love of the Beatles and Herman's Hermits. Colin remembered a hair-raising trip in a canvas-roofed Morris 8. David described Peter rescuing exhausted cyclists from the rail trail and Mary preparing a feast for strangers. Barry, the youngest, was taught by Peter as a 9-year-old — "I'd never had such a good teacher" — and learned to milk goats, shoot, and identify gum trees, inspiring his career in forestry. Sister Laurie credited Peter's example through her years in Queensland, and Carol, unable to travel, sent her love.

As a teacher, Peter was beloved and unconventional. Son Chris recalled Mr May drilling times tables through creative chants, spelling "Constantinople" and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," making Robin Hood movies on Super 8, and building tissue-paper hot air balloons with real fire underneath. A former student declared he was "the best goddamn teacher we ever had." Peter wrote a poem in 2020: "My story is real... a story of joy looking forward and not back." Rebecca shared that his advance care directive named "no longer being able to play music" as his greatest fear. He made a dulcimer by hand and played tin whistle through his morning chores. Laura, the youngest, drove him to hospital at 14 when he nearly severed his leg with a chainsaw. He taught her to chisel fossils from cliff faces and modelled a philosophy she still carries: "If he could, he would, and if he couldn't, he'd find another way." In his final years he organised sound bath sessions at her yoga studio, gifting healing to people he had never met.

Granddaughter Keira sang "In My Life" before the grandchildren led the congregation in "Let It Be." Sharon read 1 Corinthians 13. The family surprised Mary with Leonard Cohen's "So Long, Marianne" — the song of their courtship. The service closed with everyone singing "Stand By Me." The celebrant quoted Rumi: "Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with their heart and souls there is no separation."

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