‘He was larger than life’: the great-grandfather who bellowed show tunes as he died of Covid

Ralph Cordingley had three great loves - his family, golf and music. In his final months he asked for his favourite sheet music to be brought to his nursing home because he couldn't bear the songs they were singing.

Aged 85 when he died, his daughter, Deborah Clarke, is sure if it weren't for acquiring Covid-19, he'd still be alive today.

At the same time, though, it's not about that, not really.

"It's about celebrating them, not just being a statistic," Deborah says. "These people had lives."

Up until his 80s, Ralph was still playing golf with a tidy handicap of nine. Then a near-death fall meant he decided to enter aged care.

He'd been residing at a Blue Care aged facility in Caloundra, Queensland for 18 months before he caught Covid. He was so fit and healthy before then, Deborah says he'd been considering leaving the home because he didn't like the food.

She used to speak with Ralph on the phone every day. Now a grandmother herself, the wild days of her youth are far behind her. She still has purple hair, though, in homage to her enigmatic father.

"My dad was a bit of a character," she says. "He read encyclopaedias from cover to cover; he was very smart - larger than life.

"When he was on his way to the hospital [after acquiring Covid], I spoke to him on the way and he said 'I might get better food.' That was how he was."

Deborah only found out her father was Covid-positive when he rang her himself. She received no correspondence from the aged care facility until the morning he was transferred to hospital.

"It was a shock to me, I thought: 'How did that happen?'" she says of his diagnosis.

"I thought they'd put him on oxygen and he'd pull through but he was too far advanced by the time he got there."

Born on 20 November 1936, Ralph spent much of his life in the Sunshine Coast town of Caloundra, where he was a longtime president of the Lions Club and a popular councillor - instrumental in helping to buy the local hall.

"He was always helpful, understanding, a big personality," Deborah says.

Ralph loved his great-granddaughter Kirra, and accompanied her to her school formal last September. Kirra is a top swimmer at her high school and Deborah says her father was the 18-year-old's "number one supporter", financially and emotionally.

In the end, though, she thinks her dad made the choice to go.

"He didn't want it to be prolonged, he'd just had enough," she says. "He told me - 'I want to be kaput', but he stayed on oxygen so he could say goodbye to my brothers and sisters, and to FaceTime my granddaughter.

"When I went to see him at the end-of-life visit, they went to give him water, and he said 'No, I want cordial.' They told him he was being bossy and he said 'Bugger it, I'm not drinking water any more.'"

Spoken like a man who knew how to suck the marrow out of life until the end.

Deborah says she still has a stack of postcards from various cruises her dad went on in his retirement. He loved them because they were an opportunity to "show off his dancing and singing skills", two of his great pleasures.

"He loved all of that - very much a gentleman. He loved dressing up in his suits and travelling the world," she says.

The last tune Ralph sang was his favourite of all time - The Impossible Dream - and he bellowed it from palliative care unit in hospital just four days before he died.

Made popular by the 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, it is sung by Don Quixote, a man doomed to fail but strident in his belief the world would be bettered for his trying:

"It's such a poignant song," Deborah says. "It was the last piece of sheet music he got me to bring him in November when he didn't like the songs at the nursing home.

Ralph passed away in hospital on the 30 January, where his family members had to dress in full PPE to visit him. Less than 24 hours later, Deborah was told to collect his possessions from the nursing home.

She says she will remember her dad as an "old-school gentleman" with a cheeky streak that he's had since her childhood.

"When they rang me to tell me he passed away, I said, 'I'd rather remember him wanting cordial than seeing the body,'" Deborah says.

"I don't even know if I've processed it, it's easy to go into destruction and denial. I'm happy for him and the life he had, but it's also sad, there's so many different emotions.