Robert Charles Falconer

I'm Robert Charles Falconer. I'm 83. I was raised in Box Hill, where my family managed stables. As a child, I helped my great-grandfather deliver furniture using a horse and cart.  

I became a primary school teacher, and I met my wife Marjory at a school near Alexandria when I was 18. It was a bit of a love story. When we were courting, we’d go to the movies, and dances, and rabbiting. We got married and in 1969 we spent a year teaching in London, which was absolutely amazing. There was a flood of new migrants from Africa and the West Indies, and many kids struggled with the transition to city life, so teaching was difficult, but we learnt a lot. During the school holidays we travelled in an old truck, through Russia, everywhere, and that began a life of travel and hiking all over the world together.

We returned to Australia and eventually bought a place at Yarra Glen where we started our Abrain horse stud. We had two kids and around 1990 we managed to buy a place at Meadow Creek and we both taught at Appin Park School. Moving the kids from Yarra Glen was hard but they fell in love with the place and are still here and have raised their families here.

Wangaratta has changed since we arrived – back then it was mostly Anglo Saxon with a well-formed social stratum. I think we accept people of different ethnicities much better now and I think we’ve learned a lot from our migrant residents.

I’ve been in sport my whole life. At high school I got into tennis, I was in the Linton Cup squad, the forerunner to the Davis Cup. I dropped tennis when I got pretty good at athletics. I trained with Percy Cerruty and I share a record with Herb Elliot and John Landy for the 800 meters in Victoria, I’m really proud of that.

Macular degeneration is a disease of aging and there is currently no known cause. I started to notice it after Marjie died 2 years ago. I had reading glasses, but I noticed that I couldn't see in the distance, and I was having trouble driving. I went to Specsavers for a check-up, and they told me it was macular degeneration. I might go completely blind; or I might have peripheral vision. I recently had my cataracts done and that has improved things temporarily and I can drive again.

It’s been hard to navigate my grief with my eye-sight loss, but my family are fantastic. They look after me. My five grandkids are just absolutely brilliant.

I’ve moved into town, so if I lose my license I can walk everywhere, to the station, the doctor, the gym, and I can bike around the trails, and keep fit.

Technology is brilliant. I’ve got a watch that will ring my kids and an ambulance if I get in to trouble on the farm and allow them to locate me in the paddock. I’ve also got the META Ray Ban sunglasses; people are using them to assist in all sorts of situations.

I recently joined the Wangaratta Vision Loss Peer Support Group. I read about it in the Chronicle and went along. Five or six of us meet once a month and have a coffee and swap information. Because I’m new I ask a lot of questions, but I hope to share with others in time. I take a lady who is 86 and further down the track with her macula. They are just tremendous people.

Marj and I did everything together. We were very, very close. We taught together for nine years in a double classroom. We had a lucky life. She had a great life.

We were hiking on Mont Blanc in Switzerland, and she couldn't keep up with the group. When we got back, we checked it out and the breast cancer had come back after 30 years. Marj was 76 when she died.

Women have a tough life. If you think of all the things you go through as a woman that men don’t, and then they pay you 21% less in the workforce. The whole thing stinks. But how do we change it? People don't give up power; the only way is to fight for it. My three granddaughters are going to be radical feminists!

This is not the retirement I imagined. I’m busy selling the farm, but I’m not sure what’s next. There are a few things I've always wanted to do, that Margie didn't. Like join a community choir. When I was a kid one side of my family used to meet regularly and sing around a pianola, and it was a good feeling. And I’d like to try ballroom dancing. I am supposed to have a new hip, so I’ll see how I go!

Robert was interviewed in November 2025