Vale Jean May Harmey (16 December 1924 – 25 May 2024)

Jean Harmey was born in December 1924 in a cottage her British grandfather had built on a large property in North Bondi.

Attending Bellevue Hill Public School, and later a small exclusive private school in Paddington. She was a Clovelly Girl Guide, a talented surfer and rode everywhere on her bike.

When her brother Tom was posted as missing during World War II, Jean put her age up and enlisted with the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. She did this in the hope that working in hospitals she may find some information from wounded servicemen regarding her brother. 

She met Commonwealth Bank teller Kevin Harmey who was a rugby league player for Balmain. After almost 10 years of being engaged in November 1962 they married and for their honeymoon drove to South Australia, before taking  the train across the Nullarbor to Perth, where they stayed with the Strickland family and attended the Commonwealth Games.

Jean was very involved in athletics - as a competitor, an administrator, technical official and a coach. During her athletics career Jean travelled by ship to Perth where she stayed for nearly two years with Shirley Strickland and her family. While there in Shirley’s birthplace of Northam WA, Jean ran in a sprint carnival, coming third to Shirley. 

Jean soon became involved in many and varied functions for the NSW Women’s Athletics Association. 

Her service with the NSW Women’s Athletics Association commenced in 1950 as secretary of the social committee, holding this key position for 29 years, leading a group that numbered over 10. Their program was extensive, including an annual ball, Christmas events, theatre nights, dinner dances, trophy presentation evenings, cocktail parties, raffles, luncheons and teas at events and also specifically for the officials - VIP catering at major events and arranging a program of entertainment for visiting interstate and international teams and guests. These activities set the women’s associations throughout Australia as superior fundraisers to their male counterparts. 

One unusual event that Jean organised was in 1970 when the Association held a competition to decide their uniform for officials and State teams. Major Sydney department store Farmers hosted the event with two iconic women agreeing to be the judges – June Dally-Watkins and Maggie Tabberer. They used athletes and officials as the models including Alison Ross-Edwards, Marlene Matthews and Beverley Watson. Manufacturers entering the competition included Farmers and the Australian Wool Board. 

Jean also held various positions in the association including Assistant Secretary, Vice President and member of the publicity committee.

Mentored by Marlene Mathews, Jean was a starter in women’s athletics and was determined that when change came that the start area would not be a boys’ club. She qualified at the highest level as a national technical official in track, mostly taking roles as a starter but later joined the ranks of photo finish judges.

Jean was a regular in her red shirt at Sydney Interclub and New South Wales Championships. Likewise, whenever national events were held in her home state. She was a member of the Start Line Crew at the 1996 World Under 20 Championships in Sydney. Jean’s service to the sport was recognised with life membership of both Athletics NSW and Athletics Australia.

Jean had worked at the Sydney Blood Bank, and while working there, Jean had an accident, which was to affect her life for years. She was carrying a rare blood group, which were in glass bottles in those days, and as she was hurrying, fell and trying to protect the bottles from smashing, she took the full force of the fall on her back. A specialist put her in a steel brace for nearly two years, when eventually, she had an operation to fuse her spine. 

During the 1960s Jean discovered an old book on Graphology, which was the art of analysing a person’s character from their handwriting. She did a long correspondence course through a college in Illinois, USA and for many years became quite proficient analysing the writing of people from all walks of life – including her fellow officials. She was interviewed on 2UE, did some analyses for a dating program on Channel 9, and was a regular guest speaker on the subject to many different groups such as Lions, Rotary, Probus and View clubs. 

In between all her other activities for six years she was an extra in movies and TV soapies and was a Justice of the Peace.

In 1995 Jean began a 20-year career as a Civil Celebrant - a job she loved because of the opportunity to meet and help people in many stages of their lives. She described herself as working in the “Hatched, Matched and Dispatched Industry” officiating at naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals.

Jean’s funeral service was held on 3 June 2024 at White Lady Funerals, Pennant Hills in Sydney. The notice of her passing included these very apt words - “Jean was truly an outstanding lady, who was selfless, considerate and always thinking of others first.”

Jean lived a very full and interesting life until she was aged 99. She held this view on age:
“Age is just a statistic, if I tell someone my age they’ll put me in a category, and I don’t fit in any of them”

By David Tarbotton and Brian Roe, Athletics Australia
Posted 14/10/2024