My Greystones: Rodney Evans

14APR17

he plan was simple enough, and therefore, somewhat destined to go happy pear-shaped…

Head over to the happily-retired Rodney Evans and have a 10-minute chat about his beloved hometown, and then, out the door.

Two hours later, I headed to my car, dizzy, my head spinning with enough local history to have Shay Clear reaching for the Toilet Duck.

Having just retired, at the tender age of 72, leaving his sons, Simon and Ger, to run the family garage, Rodney Evans is clearly one happy man. And being Rodney Evans, despite that retirement, he’s still an incredibly busy man.

Just back from Spain, there’s that top-of-the-range, kick-ass double-garage and workshed to complete out at the back of the house, as well as the regular trips into town on the Tiglin bus, feeding and sitting down to chat with the homeless. Oh, and then there’s the Greystones Probus Club, Rodney seeking out interesting speakers for their bi-monthly meetings on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month.

And then there’s the Evans family tree. There are, from what I could gather over the two hours of chatting, approximately 4,327 Evans, or Evans-related, people living in Greystones. Maybe 4,328. I might have missed one when I coughed.

The roots are all in Hillside House, a grand old farmhouse that used to sit where the Heathervue estate is today, the entrance being up alongside that little Masonic church just off Hillside Road. The eldest son, Digby, inherited the farm, whilst Bob – and later, his son, Wilfred – took over running the Burnaby estate, whilst Rodney’s grandfather went and bought Farrenkelly House.

And that’s when it starts getting complicated. Let’s just say Rodney is one of five – the others being David, Heather, Trisha and Geoff – whilst he and his “amazing wife”, Audrey, have four of their own brats – Simon, Ger, Reuben and Hannah.

Or maybe it’s five…? I forget. Me brain got so fried with names, places, dates, connections, abandoned engagement plans to move to Australia, barn fires, block-work rebuilding with Dan Byrne, doing a mechanics apprenticeship at Herbie’s garage over in Kilcoole, taking over the workshop at Walker’s Garage in Greystones, how the missus, Audrey, is still just a blow-in after 47 years here…

Yep, there’s lots of history with a man like Rodney Evans. And, as with any good life story, it feels as though we’re still in the thick of it, with new adventures on the horizon, and a whole new generation of Evans kids coming up over that Drummin hill.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re just going to go digging deep into those Derek Paine books, to see if we can join up all the Rodney Evans dots…

You can explore more Greystonian’s thoughts on their hometown right about here.