AS the late Ray Head was taken to his final resting place last Tuesday, Northam, the town he loved, returned the sentiment.
Before a service at Bridgeley Community Centre, the hearse did a lap of honour along Fitzgerald Street.
Staff from business premises stood outside their front doors as a mark of respect and one group even threw rose petals on the hearse.
It was one of the largest funeral services ever seen in Northam, with an estimated 800 people filling Bridgeley.
Mr Head's daughter, Allison Mullins, is a highly regarded LJ Hooker employee in Victoria Park and a busload of fellow workers came to the town for the day.
Maxine Walker was the celebrant, and long-time friend Brenton Haynes delivered the main eulogy, expanding on Ray's industrious early life and his happy 50-year marriage to Julie.
Ray joined the Western Australian Government Railways at Spencers Brook at the end of 1957 and retired as a train controller in Northam in 1997 aged 55.
Alongside his railway work Mr Head was busy as a volunteer ambulance officer and first aid instructor, becoming successfully involved in national competitions.
The St John of Jerusalem flag and Mr Head's St John medals were on top of his casket along with his Northam Shire Council name block.
He was first elected to the Town of Northam on his 25th wedding anniversary on May 9, 1989, and was elected mayor in 2001.
His mayoralty lasted until the merger of the town and shire of Northam on July 1, 2007, and he was the first councillor elected to the Town Ward for a four-year term.
Mr Head received recognition over a lifetime of community service, with the most significant awards being admission to the Order of St John as a Serving Brother, the Distinguished Service Award for Service to Local Government and the Centenary Medal for Service to the Community.
Over and above all these achievements, Mr Head was a devoted husband, father, father-in-law and grandfather.
He loved fishing and his crowning achievement in this field was the catching of an elusive marlin.
In other eulogies, Richard Fare dwelt on Mr Head's successful career as a hockey coach, even though he had never played the game and friend Ron McMillan who told of Mr Head's conversion to caravanning even though he had previously been a critic of the pastime.
Funeral director Rob Tinetti told of Mr Head's participation in tube races on the Avon River, saying this proved what many suspected that Mr Head could talk under water.
There were large crowds at the interment and again at the fairly exuberant wake at the Northam Recreation Centre.
Mr Head was a stickler for protocol and he would have enjoyed this significant day.
His verdict would have been to coin one of his favourite phrases "absolutely fabulous".
