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At 2:00pm on the afternoon of Monday, September 27, 1999, a small group of Raymond Lee's gay friends met at his grave-side to remember their dear friend. All of us had only got to hear about Raymond's tragic death within the previous 2-3 months. Therefore all were doubly shocked because not only did we have to come to grips with his sudden and tragic death, but each felt that they had missed something by not having the opportunity to attend Raymond's funeral.

So we had agreed to gather on that glorious sunny Melbourne Spring afternoon to remember our dear lost friend.

Following is the text of a memorial presentation given at Raymond's grave-side that afternoon by Allan Smales, one of Raymond's close friends, and the one present that afternoon who had known Raymond for the longest period.



Raymond Wai Ming Lee…. you were just known to us all as Raymond Lee. You were born in southern China on the 19th December 1965, and was tragically to only see just thirty-two and a half years on this earth.

But during those 32 years you influenced and affected many people in many different ways, perhaps more than you will ever now know. Some of us had only known you for a short time. Others, like myself, had known you for a number of years. But for all of us there was something magnetic about you that kept drawing us to you. You were just a really nice quiet kind of guy who never seemed to upset anybody. You were always friendly and accommodating, and I for one, never, ever saw your voice raised in anger or annoyance.

You came to Australia in your teen years, as I recall, to complete your secondary education. You then moved on to Monash University where you studied Computer Science and then ended up staying in Australia for the remainder of your short life. While I don't recall you telling me about your earlier working life, we do know that you were working for the Swedish telecommunications company Ericssons in the latter years until you left us.

In the latter years you were a computer systems engineer at Ericcsons. You must have been good at your job, because at the beginning of 1997 you were sent by Ericcsons to spend five months in Montreal on a secret research and development project. I remember you telling me how difficult the weather was in the first few weeks that you were there. It was the trailing months of winter in Montreal and you were amazed at how cold it was, and how the residents there effectively lived underground for most of the time, at least in many of the shopping centres and businesses.

Because of the timing of your trip to Montreal, you had decided before you went away that you would return via Hong Kong to spend a few weeks with your family and to be present during the British hand-over of Hong Kong to mainland China. In the end, as I recall, your research project went over-time and your other travel plans resulted in you eventually only arriving in Hong Kong just a few days before the hand-over, and then you returned to Australia in early July, 1997.

Raymond… you were a guy who was proud of his body, and you had a great body. You worked out at a local gym near your home, after first sampling my own gym in the city, but then deciding it was cheaper to attend that local gym in Ascot Vale. You also regularly played squash with a number of your colleagues and fellow ex-students. As an ex student of Monash, you regularly booked a squash court at the Monash University sports centre. And because I had been living in Carnegie during much of this period, you would often call by my place on the way back home from squash to Ascot Vale… just to have a coffee and a chat, to stay for dinner, or even stay the night. I very clearly recall the particular occasion around February last year when you had called around for dinner one afternoon after your squash game at Monash. You decided that your body was looking pretty good at the time, and you wanted me to take a digital photograph of your bare chest and head. You said you wanted a photograph to send to any contacts you might make on the internet. I still have that photograph, and as it turns out, it is the only photo I ever took of you. I now deeply regret that, for all the many fun times we had together, I never arranged to have a photo taken of the both of us together. But then, I guess like all other aspects of life, I assumed you would always be around.

Part of your body image was also your clothes. You were always dressed smartly, no matter whether totally casual in shorts or track suit, or in slightly more formal wear…. You always dressed well and looked well. I can never recall an occasion when you ever dressed sloppily. Raymond… you were always very pleasing to the eye.

You had a wide range of interests. You were very interested in classical music, and I remember your great disappointment at the time that you and Michael had broken up around 1995. Michael had been very important to you and I believe that you loved him very much at that time, and for quite some time afterwards. You and Michael always bought season tickets to the MSO Concert Series. But after the breakup you were wondering whether it was worthwhile you just getting a season ticket by yourself. I had the MSO season brochure at the time, and had contemplated getting a season ticket myself to join you so that you had someone to go with. But for one reason or another, I never ended up arranging that season ticket. And I don't think you ever ended up ever getting a season ticket again either. Although we did attend some concerts, including a couple in which my own children had taken part.

You were also interested in theatre. How many times did I ring you, or you me, to determine if the other was free, and then to arrange to go see a play somewhere? We saw some great plays together, the last one being a gay play being staged at Melbourne University early last year.

You were, for a time, also interested in bootscoot dancing. It was at gay bootscoot nights at the old Mulcahy's venue in North Melbourne that I first met you around mid 1994. You were great to partner dance with in two-stepping dances. In the latter years of bootscoot at Mulcahy's you tended not to come so often, and then in the last year or two you only attended very occasionally.

Surprisingly to some, you were also actively involved in broadcasting for the Chinese Community Broadcasting Service on radio station 3MMM. You were involved for quite a while running a weekly program in Cantonese, including panel operating for that program. I remember that on a couple of occasions you went with me into the JOY Melbourne studios to check out how it operated, and you stood behind me during my programs to see if the JOY panel operations were very much different to the mixing console you had been using at 3MMM. You had offered to stand in for me as panel operator at JOY should a time arise when I was not able to do the panel operating for my own program. But you had insisted that all you would do was operate the panel, should that be necessary. You did not want to be heard "on air" on Melbourne's gay radio station for fear somebody might find out about you.

Raymond, we are discovering more and more now that you were a very complex character and personality. It was as if your personality was a house of many rooms, and each of those rooms had locks on them. To each of us here today, it seems that you unlocked different rooms, and yet just the same there were obviously some common rooms that you opened up to all of us.

I guess that some of us now are finding it a little hard to come to grips with this part of your life… the fact that you showed different people different aspects of your life. It seems that not one of us really knew the complete Raymond Lee.

Raymond… as I said earlier, I met you around the middle of 1994 at bootscoot, But it was not until we met unexpectedly at Steamworks late one Saturday night a few months later that our friendship moved to a different and more personal plain. I, like many others here today, grew to like you very, very much. It now seems such a great pity that neither you nor me were able to synchronize each others "singleness" so that we could have formally started in a relationship. Yet, in a way, it seems that we were in a relationship anyway, even if it was purely regular casual, and maybe in retrospect that was even more special in many ways, because I was able to share you on and off for about four years.

In February last year you learned that I had a spare Mardi Gras party ticket because my partner had not been able to get back from Singapore as I had hoped. So Raymond, you and I went to Sydney for the weekend at the end of February 1998, to watch the parade and to go to the party. I will always remember the pair of leather pants that you bought while you were in Sydney that weekend. You were very proud of your look in those trousers, as you paraded in front of the mirror in our hotel room.
While I had booked to return on the Monday night after Mardi Gras, you unfortunately had to return on the Sunday evening because you needed to be back at work in Melbourne on Monday morning. Raymond, how will I ever forget that very special moment we had in that hotel room that afternoon before you returned. That afternoon you opened up to me one of your other "rooms" that I had never seen before. I now realize just how special that private moment was.

Towards the end of April last year I rang you to let you know that the Melbourne gay bootscooters were having a woolshed bootscoot night on a farm out from Warburton on the weekend of 2nd May. You were very keen to go along, so I booked accommodation at a motel in Warburton. I picked you up from your Ascot Vale home and we drove up to Warburton for that weekend. The very few photographs I have of that weekend are now very special to me, taken by our friend Ta. This was to be the last time I would ever see you.

As part of the entertainment and activities on that Saturday evening in that cold woolshed outside Warburton, you saw yet another demonstration of clogging, which is a form of country tap dancing. You had seen clogging demonstrations many times before, because it was a regular feature of our bootscoot nights. But on that night in that woolshed outside Warburton, you decided there and then that you wanted to learn clogging. So I introduced you to Mez, one of the clogging coordinators, who spent a few minutes that night teaching you some basic steps.

Mez then advised you that a new series of beginners clogging classes were commencing in two weeks time. Raymond, you were adamant…. You were going to make the commitment and go to the beginners clogging classes which were starting in two weeks time, in the middle of May, 1998.
Dear Raymond…. I was to later find out that you DID in fact start going to those beginners clogging classes. In fact you started on the very same night as our friend Ta. You and Ta got to be quite friendly at those beginners clogging classes, having never really known each other before that.
But Raymond… I also later discovered something else. You only attended the first two weekly beginners classes. Ta and Mez were to tell me later that you just stopped coming to classes after two weeks. They didn't know why, and they didn't have any contact numbers to try and find out why you had stopped coming. We know why now ……

My dear Raymond…., how do we all come to grips with what happened on the night of 29th May last year? How do we cope with the fact that we have all only learned of this tragedy during the past 2-3 months? How do we cope with not having our great little friend around anymore to bring cheer to our lives? How do we cope with having missed out on attending your funeral? How is your own family coping with this loss?

You have affected us all in so many different ways. What a waste that you have left us so soon. We all miss you desperately.

In William Yang's book "Sadness", William says "….the Chinese believe that the true self, the real "I", is a spirit that never dies, which is eternal. At death the spirit shed's the physical body and begins a journey in the next world."
Enjoy your journey, buddy.

Allan Smales
(Raymond: I sincerely hope that we can two-step together again in another world one day.)

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