Fred Hyde honoured at civic reception

The contrast could hardly have been greater. An afternoon tea and civic reception, hosted by the Southern Downs Regional Council and its new mayor Cr Peter Blundell, attracted a crowd wrapped in overcoats and scarves on a chilly midwinter afternoon last week. Meanwhile in Bangladesh, the midsummer monsoon had the night before brought death and destruction through floods and landslides, which claimed 100 lives. But there was a connection.
The event at the Warwick Hotel was being held to honour a Warwick man who has spent most of his life devoted to helping children in Bangladesh lift themselves from the mud and misery that living in the Ganges delta can bring.
Fred Hyde AM, now 92, was guest of honour at the event on Thursday afternoon, which saw past and present councillors and guests gather from around southern Queensland to celebrate a career of civic duty that goes back to the Kokoda Trail and the Middle Eastern campaigns.
Mr Hyde fought in both, including two years in New Guinea, but his stint in the Middle East was to have the greater influence on his later life, with a chance meeting with Indian soldiers in Jerusalem leading to his decision to go to India – which then included Bangladesh – later in life.
His work there has led to tens of thousands of children on Bhola Island becoming the first in generations to be able to read and write.
Mr Hyde told the assembled group that he had been richly rewarded for his work by seeing the results first-hand, and noted that, for the vast majority of sponsors, who blindly gave to help people they would never get to see, were the real heroes of the story.
He only recently returned from Bangladesh, where he has spent the vast majority of his retirement.
All funds for the schools on Bhola Island are raised by a committee set up by Co-operation In Development (Australia) Ltd, more commonly known as CO-ID.
While back in Australia, he is continuing to fundraise for what current chairman of CO-ID and former Southern Free Times editor Olav Muurlink called “the best charity in the world”.
Just $8000 a year funds a school that caters for the full-time education of up to 500 children, due to Mr Hyde’s frugal use of funds, and insistence on paying his own expenses out of his part-pension.
Former chair and former councillor Len Willett also addressed the crowd, expressing his disappointment that, while schools in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart were supporting the project through their fundraising efforts, no school in Mr Hyde’s home district had extended its hand to establish a sister-school relationship with a poverty-stricken cousin.
His charitable work has not only been for the children in Bangladesh.
Some 40 years ago, as a member of the Benevolent Society and treasurer of their Building Committee, he played a prominent role in fundraising to build the Akooramak aged care facility.
Akooramak has con-tinued to grow and expand and is a centre for the aged that Warwick can be proud of.
For further details about CO-ID and its program of Building Schools to educate children in Bangladesh, call 1300 731 916.