Vale Peter Kane

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Craig
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Vale Peter Kane

Post by Craig »

The BCSV regrets to advise members of the death of long standing member and Past President Peter Kane after three months of hospitalisation for cancer, a battle which he lost in the early hours of Saturday morning. Peter served on the committee for a number of years as Committeeman, as Treasurer from 1992-94, and was President in the year 2000, a role which his twin brother Mick has also served. Peter was a regular poster to the discussion board in the pre-Facebook days as DENAIR.

Peter's funeral will be Friday 17th March at 9:15am at the Wilson Chapel at Springvale Cemetery. Light refreshments afterward.

To honour him the BCSV Australian Bus Panorama magazine will have a special 30 page tribute to his photos in the July issue.

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A Tribute by Geoff Foster
Peter Kane was my friend and I was proud to call him that. Whilst I know relatively little of his early life, I knew him well for the last 40 years and travelled much of Australia with him during that time.

I didn’t meet Peter at first, but rather his twin brother Mick, who joined our fortnightly Tuesday bus slide night group somewhere around 1980. At that time Mick was already in buses at Ventura. A year or two later, Peter, who was then working in magazine distribution with Gordon and Gotch also began coming along and also showing a keen interest in buses.

They were an interesting pair who could either be in very happy mode or in what we sometimes referred to as Grumpy Kane mode. Depending on the months choice of hairstyle and facial hair, sometimes it was easy to tell them apart, other times less so.

A group of us used to travel in 1 or 2 cars to Sydney each September for the annual bus and coach show. I think it was in 1984 that Peter asked to join us and I offered him to come with me.

We had already established that we had some areas of common interest beyond buses, notably professional wrestling and on that first car journey I played him some old audio tapes I had made from the days of World Championship Wrestling on Channel 9. We had a similar sense of humour and, for reasons which now escape my memory, we would often converse in weird Billy Connolly type Scottish accents, as well as calling each other Jimmy.

That was the first of many trips away we would go on over the next couple of decades and there was also a memorably trip Peter did with Hayden and David in 1989 to the NT. We went bus hunting all over Victoria and New South Wales, to South Australia, Tasmania and both coastal and inland Queensland, usually sharing a motel room and a few beers over dinner at the local club or in a Chinese or Indian restaurant. Meanwhile Mick was doing trips mostly with Hayden. It was Hayden who came up with the notion that the two of us each had our own pet Kane to look after.

We had slide nights in Peters Warrigal Road flat then at the house near Gordon and Gotch during the period when he was living with Jenny and their dog Nelson. Later Peter moved in with Hayden and Dave in a shared house in Cheltenham for a few years then had his own places, the last being a unit directly opposite from one Hayden had occupied some years earlier.

Our most memorable trip away was probably in 2000 when we travelled from Melbourne to Sydney for the Olympics. Sounds simple eh? Well we did it the hard way… four weeks via Adelaide, Uluru, Mount Isa, Cairns then down the coast. We arrived at Woy Woy with no booking and found a motel for $50 a night, while many were paying 10 times that down in Sydney. For the next week we would commute either by very crowded train or along near empty roads.

Together we were able to access two of the supposedly secure bus depots (though not the main one at Regents Park). And on one day we were able to access the ticket only area at Homebush Bay by just walking in, proudly drinking pepsi max and using fuji slide film, in defiance of the major sponsors coke and Kodak. We also spent quite a few hours on what we dubbed Coach Corner at Lidcombe where there was a perennial stream of buses going back and forth to the Regents Park depot.

One of our last long trips was up and back to Cairns in 2006. They were good days, when bus companies were run by families rather than conglomerates and enthusiasts were welcomed in virtually all depots around the country.

There were many other trips, one dayers, overnighters and so on and of course each cup day both Peter and Mick would be amongst the group assembled in camping chairs along the side of the road to watch the buses pass.

Peter was not just interested in buses, but also took many photos of emergency vehicles, concrete mixers and semi trailers.

When facebook bus groups started to develop Peter became a prolific poster and gained a considerable following on many groups. There was much admiration for the breadth of his collection. He started or became an admin on several of these groups and tended to rule with a no nonsense approach most of the time. It is fair to say he did not suffer fools gladly.

He also started a group called Pete’s Transport where he featured many of his emergency vehicle and truck photos as well as buses.

In recent years Peter developed his own special thing, adopting two bridges across the Monash freeway from which he could spend part of the morning or afternoon doing bus and truck photography. On several occasions he was approached by the police concerned he might be about to jump! And last year he was immortalised on one bridge by a passing Google street view car.

Peters last few months were very sad for his friends as well as his family, watching the man, the memory and the personality of the Pete we knew slowly slip away.

I shall miss him as a friend.
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Re: Vale Peter Kane

Post by Fleet Lists »

My condolences - I am very sorry to hear that.

We have some 2500 of his photos in the Bus Australia Photo Gallery https://www.busaustralia.com/gallery/th ... p?album=80
Many of those photos would have been taken off the bridges referred to be Geoff Foster.
Living in the Shire.
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Craig
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Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2004 12:26 am
Location: Edithvale, VIC

Re: Vale Peter Kane

Post by Craig »

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For friends unable to make it to Peter Kane's funeral in person on Friday, it will also be available online from 9:15am

Please go to https://smct.org.au/view/807744941

If that link doesn't work, try https://vimeo.com/807744941

You can enlarge the video to full screen by clicking the icon in the bottom right corner

Peter's funeral will be Friday 17th March at 9:15am at the Wilson Chapel at Springvale Cemetery. Light refreshments afterward.
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Craig
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Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2004 12:26 am
Location: Edithvale, VIC

Re: Vale Peter Kane

Post by Craig »

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A warm thanks to Australasian Bus & Coach magazine for sharing Geoff Foster's heartfelt tribute to Peter Kane, showing the reach of Peter's respect across the bus industry 🚌

https://www.busnews.com.au/industry-new ... peter-kane
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