The main street of Healesville has felt a little heavier in the last week.
As the clouds converged again for yet another onslaught of rainy days, the space between Express Noodles and Willow and Jackson Café where the old beef joint butcher shop used to be, continued to stand to attention.
Another of the town’s building sentries watching on steadily as the world around it continues to shift.
The air of last week’s wet mornings was tainted with the scent of absence. The absence of the beloved local, Eric Duff.
A deeply involved member of the Healesville community, Eric died on 23 November at the age of 83.
Vale Eric Duff was born in 1942 and pursued a career in jockeying before serving the Healesville township for over 60 years as a butcher.
Closing the butcher shop just four years ago in 2021, Eric worked up until he was 79.
Eric’s son Ben described his father as hard working and family-oriented.
“Dad was my best mate really,” Ben said.
“He was very kind, generous, and one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known,” he said.
“Being a butcher means long days. Sometimes it’s up at four o’clock and you don’t finish until six or seven, especially around the Christmas period.”
According to Ben, Eric would sometimes get up at three in the morning and go down to the butcher shop to cut the meat and prepare orders and then head off to the racing track to ride for a couple of hours before returning to the butcher shop and work all day.
“He would go home after all that and chop wood for his mum and then do it all over again,” Ben said.
“That type of work ethic continued throughout his life.”
“He rarely took a day off because there was always someone that needed to be served and a lot of guest houses, restaurants and locals around Healesville needed their meat and relied on him for it,” he said.
Ben recalled when his parents flew back to Australia after a holiday in the United States.
“They got home at two in the morning on Grand Final Day and at about six o’clock my mum woke up to dad getting dressed and heading out the door,” Ben said.
“She asked him where he was going and he told her he was going to work. ‘It is Grand Final Day so the shop will be busy. I am sure they will appreciate the extra hand.”
“After four hours of sleep he went to work and that is just the kind of guy he is,” Ben said.
Ben apprenticed as a butcher under his father and worked together with him in their family-owned shop ‘The Beef Joint’ in Healesville for 20 years.
“My father was my boss, he was my colleague and he was my mate,” Ben said.
“When I was little, I used to go down to the butcher shop and spend the day with dad, sitting on a milk crate watching him work and helping out where I could,” he said.
“All of us siblings would go down and help him out after school hours. It was a family thing.”
With a love for interacting with his customers, Eric was known as the town chatterbox, always happy to chat and often building long-lasting relationships with customers.
Ben said, “He had this thing he used to do which I always used to laugh at, where if he wanted to chat, after serving a customer he would wander around the counter and move as if he was about to open the door for them.”
“Then he would end up leaning on the door and continuing his chat until he was finished and the poor customer was stuck there,” Ben said.
“They would be hanging on to their bags, with the handles cutting into their hands. It was his signature move, I would say.”
Beyond being known as a shop owner, Eric had his fingers in many pies.
From being president of the Healesville Chamber of Commerce, and playing a strong role in the Healesville Municipal Band, to being president of the Healesville High School Council for almost 20 years, Eric’s contributions to the community are vast.
Ben said, “he was a very busy father and grandfather and person in general.”
“We used to call him Mr President for a while because he was president of four different organisations,” he said.
According to Ben, Eric valued family above all else.
“He always made time for us all. Especially his grandchildren,” Ben said.
“He would ferry them anywhere, take them wherever they needed for their sport and school.”
“He showed up for grandparent’s days and he would take them down to the beach house for weekends away and take them out for lunch and spoil them.”
The community’s love for Eric remains strong.
Ben said, “The Facebook post we put up about him got over 250 messages. They were all lovely. Everyone had such lovely things to say.”
“The support and the messages from the community have been extremely overwhelming. It’s been really, really nice,” he said.
“I am, and I think a lot of other people are going to really miss him.”
Healesville local and long-time friend of Eric Garry’s first impression of Eric was that he was “an aggressive little fella, who loved to chat and would tell you exactly what he thought.”
“Most importantly, as I got to know him I saw he had a big heart. Was really community minded and he was completely family oriented,” Garry said.
“I would say he is probably my best mate.”
Garry first met Eric when he opened a café in Healesville 25 years ago. The café purchased meat from Eric’s butcher shop.
The friendship bloomed when the two went to Europe together along with their wives.
“When we got him and his wife to come to Europe with us, it was the first time he had been away longer than a weekend,” Garry said.
“He has been a hard worker all his life.”
“His whole life was the butcher shop and his family,” Garry said.
According to Garry, Eric brought his love of butchery across the globe on holiday with him.
Garry said, “One funny thing when we travelled with him, was that everywhere we went, we would have to drag him out of the local butchers.”
“He would be in there chatting to the butcher, looking at the different cuts of meat, taking photographs and documenting what he could bring back,” Garry said.
“It was also sort of a work trip for him. He just loved it”
With Spain being one of Eric’s favourite destinations due to the many legs of ham hanging in the streets, Eric bought himself a new slicer and shipped it back home.
Garry said, “We went to Spain, Italy, France and then America and he absolutely loved all of the communities we got to see and be a part of.”
“Once we got Eric to travel, he absolutely loved it because he could chat to and meet new people,” he said.
“When we were away he would Facetime with his family every day. “
Garry can attest to the community’s love for Eric.
“He was well-loved and there are actually a lot of people in the community who all said they really liked Eric,” Garry said.
Known for his chatty demeanour, Eric solidified his role in the community as the guy you go to for advice on anything.
“Eric was the sounding board for the community. He knew just about everyone in Healesville and surrounding districts” Garry said.
“People would come up and ask him anything because he probably knew the answers.”
“He was also a good conduit to the council and was always ringing up and advising the council in the best way possible of what they were doing wrong.”
Eric’s Memorial was held on Saturday 6 December and was attended by hundreds of members from the Healesville community.
