Trevor Mott, former Wollongong councillor and one of the Mercury's most prolific letter writers, was an egalitarian with a solid work ethic.
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He could hardly look at his son, David, when he learnt the surf-loving teen was, for a while, receiving dole payments.
When David landed a job at the University of Wollongong, Mr Mott wanted to make sure it lasted. He would drive past the campus every day and make sure his son's car was there. If not, there would be "a big inquisition" at home that night.
William Trevor "Spider" Mott died on Saturday, aged 76, almost two years after he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
At a service at Kembla Grange on Thursday, about 400 people gathered to remember Mr Mott's contribution as councillor, community activist, volunteer surf lifesaver, Vox FM community radio DJ, father, grandfather and husband.
He was a larrikin child who spent much of the 1940s running around the bush and beach at Stanwell Park in bare feet.
But home life was brutal for him, his mother and brother.
The boys' father terrorised them, and would take to them with a stock whip and point a rifle at them for acts of disobedience.
Mr Mott left home at 18 after wrestling a shovel from the old man and hitting him with it in the stomach. For a while he lived rough in a small humpy beside a local creek, where he would bathe and wash his clothes.
A student at Corrimal High School, his tutelage in politics, community activism and social justice had by then already begun under a schoolmate, future Coledale Labor union icon Jack Wright.
He had joined the Communist Party at 16 and got his first job as an apprentice butcher and then - more pleasingly for a boy built for comradeship - a wheeler at Coalcliff Pit. He did a stint on coastal shipping around New Zealand when he was 21, but "it was not as exciting as the politics back in Australia", he said on his return.
He worked on the Sydney waterfront and prided himself on his position as job delegate for the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF).
He was able to buy land at Stanwell Park after a racehorse he bought a major share in ran well.
The horse was called Healy's Hope, after WWF leader Jim Healy.
He returned to the coal mines and was a deputy at pits at Coalcliff, Old Bulli and Tower.
Outside of work, he was president/secretary of the Sandon Point Surf Club, patron of Northern Suburbs Rugby League Club, president of Wollongong's Parents Without Partners and - from within the Active Community Team - fought to prevent 40 metre-high coal bins and coal railway facilities being built on Sandon Point.
He was elected to the council in 1999, describing himself in the internal staff newsletter as "fair dinkum and [prone to] do things from the heart. Soft. Not pretentious or [possessing] any hidden agendas. Trustworthy, honest and co-operative, but not a mug".
In local government, he was involved in some famously contentious moments, helping to put the kybosh on council general manager Rod Oxley's $27,000 annual bonus in 2003, and taking on councillor Carolyn Griffiths over the issue of ratepayer-funded travel.
His causes are well chronicled in the Mercury's archive of letters to the editor. In recent years, his name would make the pages about once a month but in the past, his contributions could be far more regular. When he took aim at a 10-storey hotel proposed for Cliff Road in the late 1990s, his letters were published about once a week.
More recently, they came in opposition to the proposed lease of public land at Stuart Park to Skydive the Beach.
In his later years, Mr Mott liked to meet four friends at area cafes for thrice-weekly discussions on politics, religion and philosophy. They called themselves the Caring and Sharing Group and, on parting, Mr Mott would always tell them, "Comrades, keep left and you'll always be right".
Thursday's service heard from Mr Mott's stepson, Jason, and children David and Linda, who remembered her father as "a gentleman".
"He didn't swear in front of women and opened doors for them," she said.
Mr Mott is also survived by 10 grandchildren and his wife of 32 years, Lynette, whom he credited with "transforming" him.
Mourners heard music from his fellow ukulele-players, the Swingaleles, who performed The Internationale and The Union of Different Kinds.
Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery told the crowd Mr Mott had known life's struggles as well as its great joys.
"Trevor knew very well the pain of life. The circumstances in which he grew up we know very well how tough it can be at times, but at the same time he wasn't overwhelmed with bitterness. That says something about the man's character."