People. Places. Politics.
Those were the three interests Bill Wood listed on his CV for the first ACT Legislative Assembly in 1989, the Labor senator Katy Gallagher told mourners at Mr Wood's state funeral on Tuesday.
With brilliant autumn sunlight streaming into St Paul's at Manuka, every living former territory chief minister gathered alongside family, friends, colleagues - and even past political opponents - to remember a man who dedicated his life to the common good.
"I got to know a kind and gentle person, a man who desperately loved his family, a man of strong views and beliefs, a man of enormous integrity, a man who loved to be busy, a man known for his short, sharp, sometimes blunt, answers and speeches, a man who deplored time wasting and long speeches. A man who is both interested and interesting - and always, always punctual," Senator Gallagher said.
"You had to work very hard to get to a meeting or an event before Bill."
Mr Wood died aged 88 on Sunday, May 19.
Bill Wood was born in Toowoomba on November 4, 1935, to Anne and Les Wood, who was a Labor politician, and briefly opposition leader, in the Queensland state parliament.
Mr Wood and his twin brother, Peter, both served as Labor members in the Queensland state parliament. Mr Wood lost his seat of Cook in 1974 and came to Canberra in 1978, returning to work as a teacher.
Senator Gallagher recalled Mr Wood arguing strongly in budget cabinet meetings for more resources for the arts. Arts people like it when their minister is interested and Mr wood was as involved and interested as they come, she said.
"For the entire period of Bill's Assembly service, all 15-and-a-half years of it, he was either minister for the arts or the shadow ministers for the arts. The Tuggeranong Arts Centre, the Glassworks, the ACT Poetry Prize, the Street Theatre, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Civic Library, the Canberra Art Prize. These were all projects that Bill helped to bring to life in some way," she said.
Mr Wood was remembered in the words of former chief minister Jon Stanhope as having done something almost no politician had ever done: Mr Wood seriously and genuinely risked giving politicians a good name.
Journalist Stephanie Wood, Mr Wood's niece, recalled her uncle's greatest and eternal love was for his wife, Beverley. Childhood sweethearts, their romance began in high school and they were a team for seven decades, she said.
Mr Wood was a supportive father and grandfather, she said. He liked to say, taking after President Truman, that one can achieve a lot if you do not constantly crow about it, she said.
"In more recent years, Bill faced his biggest challenge: IBM - inclusion body myositis, a rare disease that captured his body and slowly destroyed his muscles. ... But he did not lose his sharp mind nor his determination to slow the muscle degeneration," Ms Wood said.
"Until very recent weeks, he was diligent with exercise and physiotherapy. Sadly, even with his grit and determination, he could not prove the experts wrong.
"Nevertheless, until almost his final day, he remained up to date with news and current affairs and continued reading. On his hospital bedside sat the latest Quarterly Essay about Peter Dutton side by side with a volume of Manning Clark's History of Australia."
Ms Wood recalled her uncle once said one of his greatest achievements was to have been part of the establishment in the ACT of a good government. It was an ambition he expressed on the first sitting day of the first Assembly.
"He was well-read enough to know just how precious good government was."
