According to Les' father Bob, his mother Florence left their marriage in 1927. A newspaper covering their divorce in 1944 stated there was no issue from their marriage. (This court statement was untrue).

Les was born in 1920 four years before his parents married. Les’ birth certificate states Bob was his father. Unfortunately both Les and his younger sister Jocelyn, were put in Salvation Army orphanages when he was 7 years old. When old enough Les moved out of the orphanage. I believe he went to Laidley to live with his father and attended Gatton High School.

Les became curious about his family heritage, because he had heard his father say on orphanage outings, “the girl is mine but the boy isn’t”. Les left Laidley venturing to North Queensland to find Dittons to seek the truth about his mother and father. I believe the Dittons whom Les located shunned him. Les was convinced they considered he was not a Ditton. The fact that his mother was five years older than his father also compounded the issue. Les suspposed his real father might have been Arthur (Tim) Ditton after conversations with several NQ Ditton's.

There must have been reconciliation between Les and his father. In my pre-teens I went to Laidley during school holidays to stay with his father and his new family, so I presume his father realised Les was his child because he recognised distinguishing Ditton features.

While driving through Mackay in 1969, my wife and I met Clarence (Dick) Ditton, his wife Margaret, his son Ray and his finance. After introducing ourselves, Margaret invited us to dinner the following night. Dick then said "I will tell you something about your grandmother Florence, when you come tomorrow night." However at that dinner he said "Margaret told me not to tell you." It is significant that I have had a Ditton family website for twenty years and have only been contacted by one Queensland Ditton.

A DNA test requested by that one Queensland Ditton resulted in proving that Les is a Ditton and his grandparents are Abraham Ditton and Sarah Barron. Regretfully Les never knew he was definitely a Ditton. Family lore can be wrong. Refer also to Clem Ditton's "Shaking the Mulga" a comprehensive Australian family history book. ISBN 978-0-646-82992-0.

Les and Hamel's children are:

            Living

Charlie (Pa) was much loved by his grandchildren. Following is a precis of their eulogies at his funeral service: 

Charlie was great to be around because everyone could relate to him. He would always ask us how our mates were and what they were up to, and a few of them are here today to say goodbye to Pa.

However, the common denominator was talking sport, in general, footy and of course Collingwood. This would often lead to some arguments over, for instance the greatest cricketer, Charlie would listen to us then end the issue quick by saying Don Bradman. Having seen the Don play was good enough reason. Another thing that would often fire Charlie up was the one handed mark Gary Ablett took over Gary Pert at the MCG - 'Never held onto it long enough' he said.

I don't know how many premierships Collingwood won while Charlie was following them. He did see them win four in a row and he was at the 'G when they finally won in 1990. He also watched them lose their fair share and hated the word 'Colliwobbles'

Charlie certainly lived through a great era of sporting feats he said he saw the best, Bradman, Phar Lap, Daicos. In life general he was generous with money and a much loved great grandfather. When we were lucky enough to go overseas we would always buy him a carton of smokes, T shirts and after shave, I think he had something like 59 shirts hanging up in his wardrobe.

When we told him our wives were pregnant and he was going to become a great grandfather, he stopped smoking by his own choice, in the house during Sunday night roast dinners, and never smoked around the kids, which is a great effort for a guy who smoked all his life.

His innings is now over on 89. You can't live forever but he'll be forever remembered by all who knew and loved him. Rest in peace Pa.

I don't know if any of you heard the funeral director's name's Carlton and when we met Carlton on Monday night, I thought geez Pa will be doing cartwheels when he finds out the funeral director's name is Carlton.

Some early memories of Pa are when my brother and I would jump on the tram on school holidays and go out to Preston and help him mow lawns. I don't think we were much help - I think he just ended up paying us to get out of his way in the end.

When I was 13 I made a baseball trip to America and Pa paid for the trip. He was very, very generous.

I can always remember Wednesday night dinners and we would be playing footy down the park and Pa would get off the bus and we would all run over and see him.

When we got a bit older and were on our Ls we would give him a lift home. Even after I did an illegal turn in front of a police car and Dad would give me a spray, on Saturday at the footy Pa would say "Geez, I think your Dad's a bit hard on you, I reckon you did alright".

I suppose a lot of the memories are from football and how Pa loved going to Victoria Park and the Sherrin stand. We would get there 45 minutes before the start of the game and the siren would sound and he hadn't even got to his seat because (a) his knees were playing up, and (b) he would stop at every aisle and talk to everyone along the way because he knew them all. We only had two seats but three of us used to get in, because we would do the old "ticket swap" and my brother and I would sneak up and squeeze in.  Sitting in front of us there was a trans-sexual and you can imagine, at 12 and 13 and Pa explaining what a trans-sexual was.  He would give us a nudge and say "That's a bloke".  And that's as far as the explanation went, with a bit of a laugh and a bit of a smile.  At half time he would pull out the coffee that he lovingly made, with probably about ten sugars and it was sickly sweet but it was a beautiful drink and Pa sure loved his coffee at halftime.

In 1990 as you know, Collingwood made the grand final and Pa would have been 74.  We slept out for tickets at the Arts Centre and had a great night that night and I don't know if I am talking out of school here or what, but in the late '80s, Pa for medicinal purposes as you can imagine, started to get into the marijuana.  He actually grew a couple of plants out the back.  At half time in the 1990 grand final, Pa pulled out a joint and started smoking it and shared it with the young guys in front of us.  They couldn't believe that a 74 year old, seeing all of Collingwood's premierships and here he was smoking dope.    

Pa loved public transport.  We used to go to the MCG and I would meet him at the train station.  The crowd would flood through and I would think that Pa had missed another train, but here he would come, by himself, talking to the station master.  Last off the train, last off the platform - he would just talk to anybody.

One of the last times Pa went to the footy was in a corporate box at Telstra Dome. He'd seen so many years of footy, We took him to Telstra Dome and parked underneath and went up in the lift.  He had to wear a jacket and couldn't believe he was going to the footy wearing a jacket but he loved it when the scones came out at half time and he just about ate all the scones, he put his hand in the top pocket of his jacket and pulled out a wedding invitation that was 25 years old and it was the last time he had worn his jacket. 

I am really glad Pa got to see us get married and have kids and we will always miss him.

Our life with Pa was filled with happiness and laughter, to us he was very young at heart, he always remembered my friends and thought they were all great, they also thought he was great. A friend of mine commented on a card given to me earlier this week and referred to Pa as being 'ace' in capital letters.

Particularly in the last 5 years Pa has been very young at heart. He'd rediscovered his love for music but in the new age form of CDs, he's collected over 100 CDs and a lot of them are in the top 50 artists, he used to watch video hits, he used to go down to JB Hi Fi at Northland and buy up big.

He was also easy to buy for birthdays and Christmas because all he ever wanted was CDs and CD racks to hold all his CDs. He always thought it was best to "buy singles rather than the full album because you get the best 3 to 4 songs and all the other crap songs on the album you didn't have to worry about".

Some of his favorites as Carlton mentioned were Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her first album 'Murder on the Dance Floor', Kylie Minogue, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne and So Fresh.

Pa used to help me with my footy tipping, every week at work I used to call him at 11 o'clock every Friday, had an alarm go off at work, and I'd get on the phone to Pa and he read out my footy tips to me, I think everyone at work must have known that I was getting my tips from my Pa because I'd have to speak so loudly over the phone and repeat them back to him. One year we came second so he was really happy with that.

Pa was also very generous to us all, I don't know whether my brothers knew about this but at our Sunday roasts every week Pa used to slip me a $20 dollar note without anyone seeing and say "Here you go that's for petrol or you know, whatever you need" and I'd try and refuse but he'd never never take it back.

We love you Pa, and we're happy now that you're reunited with Nanna again. We'll miss you dearly and will always love you and never forget you.

Charles and Mavis' children are:

1. Terence Charles Bailey (1942-2021). Terry was a hard working bricklayer who made friends easily. He married late in life and had no children. Following his divorce he returned home to care for his father Charlie. He was a much appreciated neighbour to all and a very popular man. A much loved brother, uncle and grand uncle.
2. Living