After John and Bernadette married, they continued Bernadette’s family tradition since the 1940’s, of coming to Lorne every year for summer holidays.
When John’s father in law, Phil Danaher retired, he wanted to live permanently in Lorne so in 1982, Bernadette, John and Phil bought a house together in Lorne. As Bernadette was employed in education and had term holidays and John ran his own business, they managed to spend the majority of weekends and school holidays in Lorne.
John was born and lived for the early part of his life in Newport and attended Sacred Heart Primary School and Williamstown High School. Unfortunately John’s father was involved in a car accident and was unable to continue working, so John left school in year 10 and then worked to support his family. He was employed by an insurance company until his marriage to Bernadette, he then formed an office cleaning business, which ran successfully until his retirement in 2005
John and Bernadette have been married for 46 years and have two daughters, Lisa and Nikki. Lisa and husband Peter Bracken live in Lorne. Nikki and partner Early Darcy and their two children Karah and Kobe also live in Lorne. Before living in Lorne, Bernadette and John lived in Keilor, then Essendon, where both children attended school. When the two children left home, they lived for a while in Travencore.
John loves playing and watching golf, follows Essendon football club and enjoys the odd flutter on horse racing. Bernadette and John like to travel regularly, have caravanned around Australia twice, have travelled to US A, driven through the UK, Europe and Canada. Also on their itinerary was cruising to Alaska and trips to the North and South islands of New Zealand. In 2017 they plan to travel to Greece and Croatia.
John is a member of the Lions Club of Lorne, Lorne Golf Cub, Lorne Aquatic Club, Lorne Football Club and Lorne Men’s Shed. Bernadette is also an active member of the Lorne Lions Club and is kept busy helping organise weekend markets and the popular Easter Art Show.
John likes to work on their garden and adores looking after their 4 year old grandson who John said, “is such a funny little man and always has them in fits of laughter”.
