By Theo Clark
On 25 March 2025, a large contingent of current and former Lane Cove residents were amongst those who filled St Mary’s Catholic Church, North Sydney – and a wake at The Diddy Bar, at the Longueville Sporting Club – to farewell respected local doctor Malcolm Willis, who passed away on 13 March, just shy of his 76th birthday.
The family eulogies – and the large crowd in attendance – recalled Malcolm as an endlessly happy, generous and kind man – even through a decade-long battle with cancer. Originally a Taree boy (and dux of Taree High), Malcolm graduated in Medicine from Sydney University, holding fond memories of college days as a resident at St Pauls.
He had been heavily involved in the community beyond his dedicated work as a GP – coaching rugby union for the Lane Cove Juniors, and running the line as doctor for the St Ignatius’ College Riverview First and Second XV for well over two decades.
Former rugby players were out in force to farewell their “doc”, among them Wallaby Nathan Charles, who is believed to be the first professional athlete with cystic fibrosis to have played a contact sport and who remembers Malcolm as among the most influential people in his life.
“Dr Willis was a great advocate and supporter of mine and someone I know that our family would view as more than a doctor but also a friend,” says Nathan.
“I first met Dr Willis as a 3-month old baby. My family was recommended to Dr Willis as a great local doctor and someone who would be beneficial for my condition of Cystic Fibrosis. Since then, he was our family doctor ever since.
“From an age where I started to play professional rugby, Dr Willis would always book in a double appointment with me. For the first 10-15 minutes we would chat medically, then the last 45 minutes would be about Rugby.
“His love for rugby was immense and we always had great chats.”
As son Ben recalled in his eulogy for Malcolm, Rugby – along with fine wine, great literature, the art of good conversation and the comedy of Monty Python – was one of the abiding loves that Malcolm passed on to his children.
Malcolm’s sons played for the Lane Cove Junior Rugby Union Club for a number of years. His sons are Ben (current coach of the U12 team), Sam and Michael.
Malcolm commenced with LCJRU as coach for under 7s in 1984 and continued as an active member through the 1980s and 1990s.
To the last, he was making arrangements to attend the opening round of the Shute Shield with regulars Leigh Clark and Rob Sinclair.
“Dr Willis will be sorely missed but always remain a positive light in our lives on how he positively impacted not only my health but guidance from a medical perspective,” Nathan Charles says.
Malcolm wore the burden of his own illness with such a light and uncomplaining touch in the company of friends that, despite increasing frailty, it seemed he might carry on forever. Brushing off illness with humour, he would flash his disabled parking card as a golden incentive to induce friends to chauffeur him to football matches.
Malcolm had been resident in Lane Cove for close to five decades. Together with wife Pam, a nurse educator, he raised a fine family of five children – Michael, Kate, Sam, Ben and Lucy – who in turn have supplied 13 grandchildren.
His children attended St Michaels School Lane Cove through the 1980s and early 1990s, an era that gifted Malcolm, Pam and their children a close-knit circle of lifetime-friends, who returned in force across all their generations for the funeral and wake.
Along with many in that circle, Malcolm and Pam had been stalwart supporters of Lane Cove’s Josephite Community Aid (JCA) fundraisers, which were staged regularly at the Diddy through the 1990s and early 2000s to raise money for looking after newly arrived refugees in Sydney.
The evenings were held to coincide with overseas Wallabies Tests, and all attended in costume appropriate to the respective city in which the Wallabies were playing.
Malcolm would enthusiastically pair with fellow Lane Cove doctor Brian Bailey to don the tights of a London Beefeater or beret of a Marseille fisherman, depending on what outlandish costume suited the occasion, while Pam formed a similarly comedic costume duo with Brian’s wife Jane Bailey, an old nursing friend.
It was Jane who stepped in to read Pam’s loving tribute to Malcolm at his funeral on her behalf – a great friend in both comedy and sorrow.
Many thousands of dollars were raised for JCA and it was typical of Malcolm’s community-mindedness to be involved.
Which all made it appropriate for his last drinks to be held at The Diddy, where Malcolm had belonged to the generation that had helped save the now thriving club from oblivion in the early 1990s, when Kevin (the only barman) used to employ a mop to prop up the ceiling along sections of a decaying roof.
It was probably Malcolm’s mates Rob Sinclair and the late Michael Prior who popularised the name of the club as “The Diddy”, a monicker which was only recently crowned by the Guardian UK as the world’s best sporting club nickname.
It originated in recognition of the frequency with which its predominantly elderly members in those days could be overheard responding to health updates on absent mates: “Oh, did he die, did he?” – leading to talk of the “The Diddy Di Diddy Club” (later shortened to “The Diddy”, to avoid scaring off new patrons).
The precise inventor of the nickname is a mystery on which Malcolm could shed little light. Michael Prior put the sign on the wall, but Rob Sinclair is slowly recovering a memory that he invented it. Local accountant Bob Elliott on the other hand swears that it was actually… the Author (yours truly)… who came up with the name.
And who am I to argue with Bob Elliott?
The rescue of the club came not only through the financial reliability of Malcolm and friends’ Friday night Diddy middies, but through the practical vision and community-mindedness of men like his friend Ian Chapman, an engineer from William Edward Street, who helped transform the venue from its redbrick simplicity to the family friendly al fresco dining venue of today.
Malcolm and Rob Sinclair last year presided at the unveiling of a plaque for Ian on the dining terrace he built at the club. The occasion was all the more poignant as Ian had not only been Malcolm’s friend, but a patient, whom Malcolm had cared for through a struggle with early onset dementia.
After a lifetime of helping others, there is little doubt that Malcolm will now have gone to his reward. Perhaps he’ll be sitting on one of those golden bar stools up yonder, sharing a middy with old Lane Cove mates like Ian Chapman and Michael Prior.
With a bit of luck, they might even be able to remember between them who invented “The Diddy” nickname after all.
