ANDREW DAVID LAKE 1978 - 2016
This site is also dedicated to our son
Andrew David Lake born in Leeds Yorkshire on 28 Nov 1978.
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When Janet & I started working on the family tree in 1999 we never realised that one of our own children would become part of our family history during our own lifetime but unfortunately that is just what has happened.
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On 1st January 2016 we phoned Andrew, who had emigrated to Australia in 2002, to wish him a Happy New Year. We phoned at 8am UK time which would be 7pm where he was in Wodonga Victoria Australia. There was no answer so Janet left a message for him.
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Saturday 2nd January at 8.45am there was a knock on our door which Janet answered to find a policeman standing on the step. He came in and asked us if we would look at a photo and say whether we knew the person, he showed us a copy of Andrews passport photo and relayed the news that Andrew had been found dead in unusual circumstances. To say we were shocked is an understatement, nobody expects their child to die before them.
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It appears that whilst walking back from the shops at noon on new years day, he went and sat down in the shade of a veranda of a business closed for the holiday. It was 40C (104F) so he was tired and thirsty. The next morning at 8am a passer by heard a mobile phone ringing and found Andrew dead on the veranda. We believe he fell into a diabetic coma and never regained consciousness. He had a doctors appointment booked for 2 days later and it appears that he was diabetic without it having yet been diagnosed. His mobile phone was ringing because of Janet leaving a message.
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We immediately travelled to Melbourne a journey of 23 hours to attend to all the arrangements and sort out his belongings.
Janet had to have a DNA test done to confirm she was his mother and we were interviewed by the Coroners department and the Wodonga Police.
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Although we had been to Melbourne twice before we had never been to Wodonga, where he had lived for the previous 5 years. Wodonga is in the state of Victoria, 203 miles north east of Melbourne right on the border with New South Wales.
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Andrew was cremated on 12 Jan 2016 at the Murray Valley Crematorium New South Wales and his ashes came home with us to the UK. Malaya Airlines were particularly helpful with our extra luggage when bring back some of his belongings.
On 28 November 2016 the day which would have been his 38th birthday, his ashes were scattered in Balmacaan Wood, Drumnadrochit, Scotland, he was home.
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Andrew had a lot of old books in his apartment and in one of them we found this poem by Henry Lawson
