Tom was born in the Great Depression, at a place called Lal-Lal, a soldier settlement block given to his dad, also Thomas Mayo, an ANZAC, who came back from Gallipoli and France in poor health. Tom’s mother was Edna and he had two younger brothers, Jim and John. As a boy he worked with horse teams. Tom spent his high school years boarding at St Joseph’s, Hunters Hill, during the Second World War. Food was scarce at the school and they grew their own vegies and milked cows. 

On the night the Japanese attacked Sydney Harbour, they huddled in air-raid trenches until Brother Angelus, sick of the mud, declared “Back to bed, boys, we’ll die like gentlemen!

The same Brother explained before a physics test, “for the purposes of this exam, we will go on assuming the atom cannot be split”. Hiroshima having happened the previous week.

Back at Lal-lal, in charge at 18, there was the odd bit of work to deal with. Luckily he had his uncle, Geoff Sutton, at Yarraman, another old ANZAC, and F W Gibson of Plevna, both tough, smart men. At one stage he was sowing for F W Gibson during the day, and doing his own place at night.

His association with both places was to run the rest of the century, and to bring him benefits, both business and personal, all his days. Tom won a wheat trophy at the Royal Easter Show. Tom became the local bush fire chief and was still president of Plevna fire brigade 60 years later.

He was an early adaptor of soil conservation and soon there were contour banks all over the property. He was on the hard and soft wheat growers association which eventually morphed into Grain Corp, where he was a founding director. He was later offered the chairman’s job, but declined, saying he had a farm to run.

He was on the oil seeds board, and was growing linseed in the sixties, and also Canola, before it had a polite name. He also adopted minimum tillage farming, although he missed the stubble burning, which he still did occasionally for disease control.

About the time Rene and Tom married it was decided to build a new church on this spot (St Michael’s Church, Trundle). Father Boylan charges some of the fund raising to Tom. Having helped build it, it needed to be filled and Dad, along with the Cronins, Quades, Crowleys, Kearneys, Kerins and others, helped provide a very healthy congregation for the church. With the arrival of the John Capells, there were 21 Capells in a square mile.

Tom joined the Board of the County Council and also worked as a swimming instructor at the newly opened pool. He was taught to fly at Narromine but an ex-Battle of Britain spitfire pilot. He was active in the Condo club and then the Forbes Gliding Club where he was an instructor and had a wonderful time with people like Dave and Bruce Adams. 

He helped found the SES with people like Dawn Daly and the Morrissons. He chaired the Trundle Community Consultative Committee. He was treasurer of the RSL for many decades. He was awarded Citizen of the Year in 2006 and awarded the OAM in 2009 for services to the Parkes region and to wheat.

After all the years of hard work had completely worn him out he made the hardest and bravest decision of his life to leave Lal-Lal and go into care. And of that care he received when invalided I say I have never seen better and thank you to the men and women of the Trundle Hospital. Thank you to all the community for your support.