SS Nemesis relative | Illawarra Mercury | July 11, 2024 - video Dailymotion

Denise Burrell, related to Captain Lusher of the SS Nemesis. Courtesy Heritage NSW

Transcript

00:00Denise Burrell, that's D-E-N-I-S-E-B-U-R-R-E-L-L. Well, yes, we knew that it was going to be

00:20his final trip, and he was then going to go back to Melbourne to live with his family.

00:30And because it was his final ship, he said, I'll only do it if I can bring my friends

00:37onto the ship with me. So unfortunately, most of the people that went down in the ship,

00:42we believe, were his good friends. He, yeah, so the reason that he was, it was his final

00:49trip was because he had two daughters at the time, and expecting a third one, well, it

00:54was a daughter, but, and he said, I want my children to grow up knowing their father.

01:00So six weeks after the boat went down, his third daughter was born, so she never knew

01:07him at all. Yeah, so that's probably the main part of the story that we know. We know a

01:14lot about what happened to the daughters, or the family, who were back in Melbourne

01:20at the time, and they moved out to the family home that they were establishing in Proyden,

01:28and my great-grandmother brought up not only her three kids, one of which was a really

01:34tiny baby, but four of their cousins as well, all girls, so seven girls in the family and

01:41no father to bring in income. So it was a pretty tough time for the family that was

01:46left behind.

01:47That's heartbreaking.

01:48Yeah, it was. And I should say, too, my mum, who can't be here today, but is here in spirit,

01:56she's probably the oldest surviving granddaughter of Captain Lusher. She's 99, nearly 100 now,

02:04and unfortunately she couldn't make it today. Yeah. It was fabulous. We heard it over, because

02:10we've always known about the nemesis in our family, and then we heard the news breaking,

02:17and we were just so excited. And as it happened, mum was staying down with us at the time,

02:23so she shared in the excitement, and then we had a great talk with Brad. He rang up

02:27about the next day, or as soon as we identified ourselves, and mum was able to share in that

02:33as well, and she's given her story and her side of the story. But it was tremendous to

02:39know that they'd located the wreck, and we know where it is now.

02:43I always thought, we always thought, it had gone down off Cronulla Beach. So this was

02:50quite a fair ways further south, but yeah, great news. It was fabulous news. Because

02:56mum couldn't come, my son came. So great, great grandson of Captain Lusher, and he's

03:03really got a lot out of it today too. So yeah, it was very moving and fitting and sensitive.

03:08It was a lovely day.