“To me it’s a complete shock,” said Cooroy resident Charlie Cobb of the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) he was awarded in this year’s Australia Day honours list, for his service to the community of the Sunshine Coast.
“I don’t think that I deserve it. There’s a lot more people more deserving,” he said.
Aged in his nineties Mr Cobb has had a lifetime involvement in community and service groups.
Since 1994 he has been a member of Cooroora Woodworkers Club where he was president from 1999-2002, the chair and chief organiser of the club’s annual Cooroora Wood and Craft Show from 1998-2012, the former leader and teacher of the Toy Making Group, and a toy maker and donor of toys to the Salvation Army.
“The Woodworkers is like a second home to me,” he said.
“I’m one of those sort of people if you belong to something you have to become involved. It’s not much good joining something if you’re not going to be involved or work with it.
“I was president for three years. I organised the Wood and Craft Show as president for eight or nine years.”
Mr Cobb gains pleasure in the knowledge kids are enjoying the wooden toys that he makes at Christmas time that go to the Salvation Army.
“I can only imagine some of these children would get these wooden toys where they might not get a toy or something to play with,” he said.
“One of the wooden craft shows I organised we had a stall where we sold some of the toys.
“One craft show a lady had bought this truck for a lad and here he was pushing it and running around and the enjoyment that I could see in his face, that part of it gives me a lot of pleasure.”
Mr Cobb has been a Noosa Rotary Club member since 1990, president of the club from 1983-84 and a Paul Harris Fellow in 1988.
While president he organised the Debutant Ball in Cooroy when the wife of the Premier Lady Flo Bjelke Petersen came and accepted the debutantes.
He has been a member of the Masonic Lodge, Maroochydore since 1971 and chairman of each degree he was involved in in masonry.
Mr Cobb was a National Serviceman in the early 1950s and member of the Citizen Military Forces for 10 years. He is an annual participant of the Anzac Day Service and March and member of the Cooroy-Pomona RSL Sub Branch.
“I was in the army and got to the rank of warrant officer in the Citizen Military Forces,” he said.
“I was going to army two nights a week and every second weekend and our two children were growing up and I felt I was spending too much time away from my kids.
“So I then got in touch with the ambulance and joined up as an honorary ambulance bearer and that only included one night a week and every second or third weekend for one day. That allowed me more time with my two children.”
Mr Cobb was a qualified motor trimmer in his working life, having started his apprenticeship in 1945 with his father.
“My dad taught me the trade when he came out of the army,” he said.
“I’d just finished scholarship, grade 7 as it was then.
“I was only average in class. When I said to the teacher when I finished my exam that I was leaving, that I was going to work for my dad, he said, well you’re not going to come to much.
“And that stuck in my mind. Surely I’ll show him that I can be a little bit better than the average person and that’s what I’ve based my life on.
“I’ve gone along to try to help other people that I could.”
