By Callum Ludwig
Nearly 600 mourners gathered to remember a pillar of the Yarra Valley community on Thursday 9 January.
John William Anker, owner of Wandin Park Estate and a familiar face in a number of community groups and the equestrian scene, died on Boxing Day 2024.
Hosted in the new Grand Marquee at Wandin Park Estate by Tobin Brothers Funerals of which Tom Tobin was John’s nephew, the hundreds in attendance came to celebrate John’s life and show their love and support to his wife Angela, children Emily, Sarah-Jane, Rebecca and William and extended family and friends.
John’s son William, who he worked closely with on Wandin Park Estate up until his death, said the family were truly blown away by the turnout.
“I had no idea and I don’t think Dad ever would have had any idea how many people, my cousin Tom Tobin, the organisers, thought they had nearly 600 or at least they think close to,” he said.
“Even for me, it’s been quite an eye-opener to realise how much Dad played a role in people’s lives, I guess it shows even with the turnout we had, it’s been huge and the community, Dad was involved in a lot of the community in the earlier days and I remember us as kids almost got a bit frustrated with it,”
“He was always off doing other things, rather than doing things at home, and trying to help the wider community, that slowed down as he got a bit older and got a bit more tired and probably been there and done it.”
As well as meticulously upgrading and maintaining what would become the riding academy, wedding venue and function centre Wandin Park Estate, mostly with his own two hands, John was heavily involved in other community groups and initiatives throughout his life such as the Wandin-Silvan Field Days event, Seville Pony Club, The Wandin-Seville Uniting Church, Mt Evelyn Lions Club, the construction of the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail, the Australian Horse Riding Centres (AHRC) Victorian Committee and the Equestrian Victorian eventing committee.
Born in the old Lilydale Bush Nursing Hospital, John grew up in the Yarra Valley, attending Wandin Yallock Primary School and Lilydale High School and playing footy at the Wandin Football Netball Club.
He left school early to help his father on the farm due to his health concerns and met the love of his life Angela at 16, a girl from Kew who told her mum she’d marry a farmer one day after she started regularly visiting a friend who lived in the Yarra Valley. John and Angela met at Young Farmers, and it would be four years before they were wed in August 1973, John in a crushed velvet suit fitting his eclectic taste in formal attire.
John farmed sheep and cattle while Angela worked as a teacher, while also teaching riding lessons in the afternoons. Angela loved teaching riding lessons so much that she asked John if she could pursue it further, and the Wandin Riding Academy was born in 1981, which would go on to become one of the largest in Victoria and even become the location of the outdoor scenes in the first series of children’s television show The Saddle Club.
All three of John’s daughters would take an interest in riding horse too, leaving John and William to drop them at competitions and spend days visiting local Field Days to look at machinery, swimming in local rivers and visiting old friends of John’s he’d made along the way.
At age 39, John was given the devastating news that he had been diagnosed with leukemia and was given only months to live. So began five long years of John’s ‘three-week cycle’; one week in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, one week at home recovering from the treatment and one week ‘making memories’ with his children, whether that be on the slopes of Mount Buller or beach camping in Wonthaggi.
John kept surviving and eventually, medical research had developed enough to the point his sister Helen could provide John with a bone marrow transplant which would help him live over 30 years more.
John oversaw the continued growth of Wandin Park Estate throughout his life;
It would host the Wandin Park Horse Trials and previously the Australian Open Championships and the Trans Tasman event, with some of the world’s best riders passing through.
The property hosted its first wedding over 30 years ago and now hosts over 50 weddings a year
In 2001 at Wlliam’s behest, Yarra Valley Hay was formed with 45 machines now involved in its ventures.
John even had a hand in the Grand Marquee, which hosted the memorial, which was created for William’s wedding two years ago.
William said his Dad was a pretty amazing man, some called him a miracle man through his health battles, but he was just a normal person who wnated to fight to stay alive too.
“I’m 38 now, I turn 39 in March and it scares me, I’m not saying I’m gonna catch leukemia, but it shows you realise now that I’ve hit Dad’s age of when he was sick,” he said.
“It’s amazing what Dad did actually do and how we fought, obviously I was young growing up with it but to see that he was able to fight it, beat it and then live another whole life on top of that was an amazing tribute to him, especially given all that he did in those years.”
John died peacefully surrounded by family at St Vincent’s Private Hospital and was laid to rest alongside his mother Ruby, father Roy and brother Colin, who died aged just four years old, in the old Lilydale Lawn Cemetery.
Anyone who wants to show support to the family has been encouraged to make a donation to the Leukaemia Foundation in honour of John’s memory: donate.leukaemia.org.au/donate.
