By John McKechnie AO, KC
Despite being the middle of summer, Saturday the 13th of January 1951 was a blustery day – too blustery for yachts to return safely to Fremantle from Rottnest.
Col Parslow, whose lugger Alanna was moored in Thompson’s Bay, was in a pickle. He was part owner of the yacht but had to be back in Perth for business. So he left a somewhat inexperienced crew and with a promise to meet them at Fremantle next day to help with derigging and caught the ferry back to Perth.
By next day the wind had dropped and on the return journey Alanna was becalmed. What’s more, the engine failed and by lunch time Alanna was drifting near a reef a few miles south east of Rottnest.
Col was concerned about his friends and the lugger. Being an aviator himself, Col had no difficulty in persuading a fellow pilot, George Bailey, to fly Col as his passenger to Rottnest in a Tiger Moth, a sturdy biplane.
They took off about 12.45 pm and the stage was set for the calamity which followed.
Colville Oliver Parslow was 36. A West Australian, he had graduated from University with a law degree and completed articles with Dwyer Durack and Dunphy before spending time working with TJ Hughes, famous among other things as the gadfly who nearly brought down the government in the great constitutional case of Clydesdale v Hughes.
Perhaps because it was difficult to follow his love of sailing in Boulder, Col moved back to Perth.
He seems to have lived an adventurous life. In December 1938 Col and his friends had been sailing to Rockingham when they hit a sandbank and capsized. This necessitated a swim to Woodman Point over a mile away and earned a rebuke from the water police to take more care.
Although Col enlisted in the army in 1941 and was discharged in 1943, he appears to have continued in legal practice. After he had enlisted, he appeared for a husband who gave evidence that his wife was in the habit of entertaining soldiers at her home. When court adjourned, the man’s son followed him into the street and began to shove him before Col intervened by stepping between them. Things calmed down but after Col moved away, the son called after him “I hope the next time you go yachting, the boat capsizes and you drown”.
In 1942 Col married Madeline McAdam, known as Mollie, in Fremantle.
By 1951 Col had his own practice in Mount Street and was known as the Flying Lawyer because he used air travel a great deal for work. He was a member of the Air Pilots Association and an experienced aviator.
And now we return to Sunday the 14th of January 1951.
A Tiger Moth has an open cockpit for pilot and another open cockpit for a passenger. Col dressed in blue overalls, scarf and flying helmet.
At about 12.45 pm Mr Bailey took off from Maylands Aerodrome (now a police complex) and flew to Rottnest. No sign of the Alanna, so back to Fremantle then a zig zag course at 500 feet (150 metres) to Rottnest again. The sea was calm and crystal clear. The Alanna was spotted slowly drifting towards a reef.
Col became agitated because he considered the crew was inexperienced even though a competent yachtsman had joined the boat in his place. He discussed the possibility of jumping with Mr Bailey who told him not to be foolish. Mr Bailey then busied himself for a few minutes, preoccupied with the lugger. When he looked forward again, Col was in a crouched position on the lower wing. Mr Bailey shouted at him.
Colville Parslow rolled off the wing and to his doom. Turning slowly in the air, and out of control, he hit the water. His downward passage was observed by Mr Bailey and by all on board the Alanna. They immediately launched a dinghy but nothing could be done. Col had slipped beneath the waves. Despite an intensive search by water police, his body was never found.
When George Bailey returned to Maylands Aerodrome he found the overalls neatly folded, scarf, helmet and shoes in the front cockpit.
Poor Mollie. She was now a widow. Although it was quite clear what had happened, the common law required 7 years to pass before death was presumed.
Fortunately Justice Walker was sympathetic and on 21 April 1951 ordered that Mollie could prove death by affidavit.
Now everyone should make a will, especially solicitors.
Had Col gone to the trouble of executing a will, written on parchment, sealed with wax and tied with pink ribbon?
Well not exactly. He had executed a short will, duly attested by 2 witnesses and leaving everything to Mollie.
The will which Justice Walker admitted to probate on the 30th of April 1951 was written on the flyleaf of a book entitled “A book of ships and seamen”.
Mollie lived until 2011 and never remarried. Perhaps she took comfort from the poem Col wrote on the other side of the flyleaf:
Nor time nor space the aircraft knows
When sweeping us apart;
But hour by mile my longing grows
To be with you dear heart.
Adapted from In the Will of Colville Oliver Parslow (WalkerJ 30 April 1951) and various articles in The West Australian Newspaper.
