Australind’s Gerry Tyrrell gives thanks to all who have supported him after being awarded Order of Australia

Nobody achieves anything alone. It’s sentiment Order of Australia recipient Gerry Tyrrell stands behind. Looking back on an extensive history of volunteering and serving the community, Mr Tyrrell points to those who served at his side as the ones who deserve praise. “I want to say thank you to everybody that has supported me, all the volunteers who don’t get recognised,” he said. “We don’t do it for any accolades or any awards, it’s just something in our nature that we do because we like doing it.” Over the years, Mr Tyrrell has stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of fellow volunteers and community champions. From a 33 year long career as a police officer, a stint at a volunteer fire brigade, to his current passion running the RSL’s military collection at Dardanup Heritage Park, Mr Tyrrell said lot of people have helped him across his many years of service. “And I guess, I’ve helped a couple of them too,” he said. Mr Tyrrell said he can think of several highlights across his life, with his time at the police or his 22 years service in the Army Reserve both standouts in their own right. His 10 years at Mandurah’s volunteer fire brigade through the 1980s also proved to be a highlight especially after Mr Tyrrell revolutionised volunteer firefighting across the state. Mr Tyrrell said he was attending a traffic accident in Lake Clifton one evening which has people trapped inside the car. “We needed the jaws of life to get them out,” he said. However, at this time, only permanent fire brigades had this specialised equipment, meaning the closest pair had to make the hours trip from Fremantle as the rescuers on the ground could do nothing but wait. “After this accident, we went back to the station, and I was the brigade captain at this time, and said, ‘why don’t we buy our own set of jaws?’” “So, we devised a plan, I sat down with a typewriter and started typing letters, and in about six months raised $20,000 and I went out and bought a set of jaws.” Though Mr Tyrrell’s leadership, Mandurah volunteer fire brigade was the first brigade in WA to have their own jaws of life, a feet Mr Tyrrell replicated when he moved to Bridgetown. Not long after, every volunteer fire station in the state would have its own set of the rescue tool on their trucks. “I might’ve been the person who thought about it, put the action plan in place, typed the letters, but it was the brigade as a group, not me that made it happen,” Mr Tyrrell said. Following his time in Bridgetown, Mr Tyrrell would more to Australind, where he has remained for 22 years, which at the time was a “quiet sleepy little hollow” according to Mr Tyrrell. Today Mr Tyrrell can be found at the Leschenault Men’s Shed where he is an active member or at the RSL’s military collection which he said is his main passion. “We get school groups through, and anybody else, and it educates them in what the past has been, and what could have been if there were no wars,” he said. “It’s my way of saying thank you to the veterans who, some haven’t been looked after very well.”