Driven

Pakenham’s Brian Lewis has been a dedicated volunteer in the local community for most of his life. He has been involved with the Pakenham Show for 44 years, a volunteer with the Pakenham Fire Brigade for 23 years, Pakenham Scouts leader, Pakenham Junior and Senior Football Club trainer and school bus driver, to name a few.
Mr Lewis, 65 this Saturday, started working at the Pakenham Show when he was 21 and was last year given a life membership of the Pakenham Agricultural Society.
At the time, he was dating his future wife, Joan, whose father Harold Norris was on the Pakenham Show committee with Peter Ronald.
Mr Lewis was asked to become a steward and by the age of 24 he was on the committee.
Just before Peter Ronald passed away he made his son, Jason, and Mr Lewis arena directors.
“I’ve only missed two or three shows in that time,” Mr Lewis said.
Three years ago he was in hospital after having a heart attack and last year he had just come out of hospital when he hurt his back and was unable to attend.
Mr Lewis said the Pakenham Show ran in the family with both he and Joan born on the same day. He said their birthday often coincided with the show.
He said despite their best efforts they had not been very successful getting their children involved.
Mr Lewis started an apprenticeship with his father on the family’s Nar Nar Goon farm when he left school at 14 and he stayed there until he was 18 and they could no longer see eye to eye.
He did a stint at Bayview Quarries in Berwick, now called Wilson Park, but the dust began to affect his lungs.
At 19 he got a ‘temporary’ job at Nissan Motor Cars in Westall, later becoming the training and development officer.
“Thirtytwo years later when the factory closed down, that’s when I finished with them,” Mr Lewis said.
Afterwards he started working at the Cranbourne CFA as a casual administrator.
He was one of the first in the state to take on the role, with many other brigades following suit and using Mr Lewis as a model.
He went on to run training programs at various companies, including Qantas.
Mrs Lewis said despite the fact that her husband worked at Qantas for only nine weeks, there were many perks later on. “We went on a trip to Queensland once and they’d upgraded us to business class,” she said.
They also got to use the Qantas Lounge when they travelled because Mr Lewis had trained most of the staff there.
Mr Lewis was even sent to Indianapolis in the United States to help fix a training program.
“I said to them ‘I’m only a farmer by trade, you need engineers for that’. But they said they had too many engineers, they needed someone with common sense,” he said.
Mr Lewis joined the Pakenham Fire Brigade the week before Ash Wednesday in 1983 and despite having no training was out fighting the fires for three days.
“It was 4.30pm and the sky was just black,” Mrs Lewis said.
“By the time I got home Brian had left. I didn’t know where he was for the next couple of days. It was pretty scary.”
Mr Lewis spent nearly eight years as an officer with the brigade, two years as secretary at Pakenham and about five years at Cranbourne CFA.
He still volunteers at Pakenham.
Two years ago he was awarded a national medal with the fire brigade.
Mr Lewis is also a member of the Cardinia Scouts Group for former scout leaders.
He played football with Nar Nar Goon and was later a trainer with the juniors and seniors at the Pakenham Football Club.
He said he had retired the year that they went into the new league and won the final.
“I left after I was told the medics were running out to the field to fix me more than they were the players.”
Mr Lewis had a double bypass 19 years ago and a back operation 14 years ago.
He has also been in and out of hospital because of his heart and back problems.
Mr Lewis retired from work three years ago and has been driving the local school bus since.
He takes students to Pakenham Hills Primary School, Pakenham High School, Pakenham Consolidated School and St Patricks Primary School.
Mr Lewis has also been asked to drive a bus at the Commonwealth Games. Most school bus drivers will take on the role over the school holidays.
The Lewises have three children, Anthony, Sharon and Brendan, and three grandchildren, Adam, 6, and 4yearold identical twin girls Jasmine and Taylor.
“I’ve achieved a little bit in my life. It’s all been voluntary, but I’ve got no regrets,” Mr Lewis said.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed what I’ve done.”