1930 ~ 2003

I sadly report the death on Wednesday 26th November, 2003 of our good friend Neil Siviour, aged 73 years.

Neil was diagnosed with a brain tumour about a month ago and spent his last days in the Peter McCallum Cancer Hospital.

Our thoughts are with his wife Anne and their family at this sad time.

Neil and Anne began growing orchids about twenty years ago, a hobby that escalated when he retired from his position as a scientist with CSIRO about eight years ago. The large shade house that almost completely occupied the back garden of their Kew home soon became filled to bursting with cymbidiums and other cool growing orchid genera. Neil was particularly fond of the coelogyne genus. I well remember photographing a spectacular specimen plant of Coelogyne mooreana for which he and Anne received a Cultural Certificate a couple of years ago.

Neil and Anne were foundation members of North-East Melbourne Orchid Society and also belonged to a number of other societies – Melbourne Eastern Orchid Society, Ringwood Orchid Society, the Orchid Species Society of Victoria and the Cymbidium Orchid Society of Victoria. Additionally, they were members of the Sapphire Coast Orchid Club in southern NSW, near their holiday house at Pambula Beach.

In retirement they travelled extensively, attending World Orchid Conferences at Glasgow, Vancouver and Auckland.

Neil and Anne were also keen on searching for orchids in the wild; Borneo and Yunnan Province in China being special destinations. Lorraine and I accompanied Neil and Anne on the trip to China – Neil amazed me with his stamina at such altitudes and happily clambered over the mountains in search of orchids while I puffed and pottered around lower down.

Neil has been a familiar figure at all of the Orchid meetings which I have attended over many years and it is hard to realize that we will not see him there again.

Tribute by Brian Milligan

A donation has been made to the Australian Orchid Trust Fund by the North-East Melbourne Orchid Society Inc.

AOTF: 2380