December 14 1948 – January 14 2025
Written by Dougal Hunt
ROLAND (Roly) Francis Hunt of Waters Rd Shepparton, passed away on January 14, 2025, after an extended battle with Prostate cancer. Roly was a family man, an active community member and a warm-hearted gentleman to all those he encountered. He is survived by his four children Dougal, Sam, Lily and Sarah and grandchildren Poppy, Rosie, Hugo, and Charlotte.
Roly was born on December 14, 1948 to Betty and Clifford at the Ballarat Hospital and grew up alongside his older sister, Julie, in a loving family home on the main street of Stawell. In his later school years, Roly earned a scholarship to The University High School, Parkville, where he worked hard to follow in his father’s footsteps, later being accepted into Medicine at The University of Melbourne.
Roly graduated in medicine, married (Susan), had two children (Dougal and Sarah), and went on to accept a Medical Registrar position in Durham, England, where he not only worked hard to hone his craft in general surgery, but immersed himself in an environment full of people and travel that he fondly recalled for years to come.
Upon returning to Australia, Roly continued his general surgery career at the Austin and Repat Hospitals, living in Ivanhoe, before an opportunity presented itself to take up a ‘tree change’ back in country Victoria. In 1986, Roly relocated to Shepparton with his young family in tow, to a place that later proved to both be the physical and spiritual centre of his existence for the rest of his life.
After moving to Shepparton, Roly later added another two children to the Hunt family (Sam and Lily) and built a house in Waters Rd with a focus that matched Roly’s family-orientated nature to a tee. In the early Shepparton days, ‘Twilight Tennis’ and Thursday golf were his extra-curricular highlights of the week, both which seeded life-long friendships within the community. Coupled with the Boys’ Lunches and Beefsteak and Burgundy outings, Roly quickly built up a network of life-long friends in Shepparton in the early days. A period of success, community involvement and fun. Life in Shepparton was good.
Ever the philanthropist that was keen to follow in his father’s footsteps, in 2001 Roly joined the Australian Army and served as a Medical Officer in East Timor. His keen sense of adventure (not to mention the excitement that he got to shoot a gun during his training!) only trumped by the opportunity to offer his surgical skills to a community in need.
Roly built further on his successful career as a General Surgeon, not only operating at both the Base and Private Hospitals in Shepparton but offering his services during regular visits to Numurkah. His well-honed craft, coupled with a kind and caring bedside manner meant that he always shared a connection with his patients. There was never a trip to the local IGA without somebody flagging Roly down, telling them what a wonderful job he had done on their hernia, or how their skin flap had turned out better than they ever imagined. Showing all their scars like a badge of honour, he left more than a mark on those he helped. Taking a leaf out of his own father’s book, Roly always provided a ‘no excess’ service to those who he deemed needing an extra hand, but he always got paid back in spades with the respect and love that came his way. He always sought to help those around him rather than help himself, and giving back to the Shepparton community filled him with a pride that was not only felt but seen.
Roly retired December 15, 2019, ready to spend more time in his childhood beach town of Point Lonsdale, as well as visits to his family in Melbourne and the United States. Covid put a stop to all such plans and Roly found himself stuck in the family home he had built, all by himself. However, testament to the people of Shepparton, Roly started getting more visits from his local network than he ever had in previous years, and the isolating nature of the global epidemic ironically galvanised his local friendships even further.
Roly’s later years saw him further extend his community involvement, joining both the Australian National Piano Awards and the Shepparton FoodShare committees. Roly’s commitment to the community he loved even lead to the offer of spare rooms in his home to a family who lost their house in the 2022 floods, until the family were able to get a roof back over their heads. He would stop at nothing to care for those who entered his world, no matter who they were.
Roly took pride in outliving the generations before him. However, in March 2024, with scans revealing the spread of his prostate cancer, the reality of his predicament came to the fore and his ‘family record’ had little left to run. For more than 35 years he had delivered care to the broader Shepparton community. He was now deservedly on the receiving end, but despite the combination of this care and a rigorous chemotherapy regimen, it was not enough.
Roly managed to make it through to his 76th birthday, that he touted as the “best birthday [he] ever had.” Contrary to his prognosis, he also made it through to a Christmas and New Years’ Eve celebration with his loved ones. Most fittingly, the home that Roly had built to house his family; the home that had been mostly empty throughout those Covid years, had every bed filled by those he loved so dearly. Each and every one of those loved him just as much.
In a fitting way and in celebration of Roly’s life, a memorial service for 100s of family and friends was held at the Shepparton Golf Club on Friday, January 24, 2025. A series of wonderful speeches were made by Roly’s sister Julie Gregory, Sarah Sweeney (daughter), Charlotte Sweeney (granddaughter), and great friends of Roly, Jim O’Connor MC, Graham Hill, Robbie Crow and lifelong friend from university, Geoff McKenzie.
