Nicholas Bennett

Good morning, I’m Nick’s uncle Dave and on behalf of the Bennett family, I’d love to share a few words and stories about my beloved nephew.
Nicholas Bennett was an adored Son, Brother, Grandson, Nephew, Cousin and Friend, gone too early, and leaving us to both grieve and celebrate his short life. His Parents Jacquie, and Adrian, his brothers Cameron, Alex, Thomas and William, His sister-in-law Simone, his uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins and his biological father Craig, and all his friends, are all left to share the devastating loss and sadness of the passing of such a beautiful, young soul.

Nicholas was known by many names – Nicky, Nic Nic, Nicwuss, Nickle arse and a few others we can’t mention here today.
He was known fondly as ‘Trouble’ by Stevie the family’s neighbour in Adelaide,
‘Creeping Jesus’ was a name bestowed upon him by his grandma, as Nick would suddenly appear in the room one second and be gone the next!
‘Sticky Nicky’ was also a popular one as he was forever coming into possession of things he didn’t own. And Fairy cake was coined by his Grandpa after busting him doing “pirouettes” in the kitchen on the tiled floor in his white socks. Nick claimed it was a spinning kick and he was practising MMA but Grandpa was not convinced. Grandpa would be so heartbroken if he was still with us today.

Nick was such a happy, kind boy. He always used his manners and was generally a calm, easy going person who adapted to new schools and situations as the family moved from Sydney to Adelaide and then finally Canberra. He was quite a generous person, sometimes to his detriment. He always saw the good in people. He liked to help others without expecting anything in return and his kindness will be missed.
His kindness flowed over to animals too. Nick loved the family dog – Oscar the kelpie, brother Cameron’s spoodle Winston, and Nara’s dogs. He adopted a kitten only a few weeks ago who he named Gregory. Turns out Gregory’s a girl, but the name has stuck.

Throughout his life, Nick was always surrounded by his brothers, whether he liked it or not.
Nick, being the middle of 5 brothers, looked up to his older brothers and was teased by his younger brothers. They all shared an amazing brotherly bond, but some of their more memorable
escapades include:
William making a silly noise that used to drive Nick wild. Will would say ‘buck buck’ like a chicken. Nick would go ballistic, and Will thought it was hilarious and run away before Nick punched him in the arm. The noise was so annoying that the people on the tour in India still comment on it to this day. Lots of laughs.
He used to kiss Simone on the cheek just to annoy Cameron when they first started dating. He had a very cheeky grin when he wanted to.
Nick and Cam used to play sting pong – whoever lost a ping pong game got the ball smacked at them. Nick gave as good as he got but Cam generally had the upper hand.
Although a skinny kid, Nick sure loved his food. He had a penchant for yoghurt, bananas, strawberries, watermelon and mangoes – the family would always buy a supply for Nick and a separate supply for the rest of the family as nobody would get any otherwise.
“keep thy grubby hands out of my cookie jar” you would hear this at grandma’s home when Nick was stealing cookies from a battery operated “Ye old knight” cookie jar. He never figured out how to remove the batteries before taking his plunder.
Fresh from the oven, banana cake lasted all of 2 minutes around Nick and our neighbour Stevie,
and his great Easter Egg haul of 2010 with Big William, which put William off chocolate for life-legend has it.
At the end of 2006, the family moved to Adelaide, where Nick attended Cedar College, Northgate.
He couldn’t wait to start ‘big school’ and was so excited to be going there with Alex at the beginning of 2007. During the Christmas school holidays Cam, Nick and Al attended holiday care where they met other kids attending Cedar college. The year started with many new friendships already established. The family lived at the top of the hill on Parkside Dr, Gulfview Heights which looked out over Parafield Airport and surrounding Adelaide suburbs. Nick loved to go down to the ravine where he and the other boys spent hours building forts out of tree branches. He also enjoyed simply swinging on the backyard jungle gym after Little Athletics.
The giant slippery dip at the St Kilda playground was visited often, and made much faster by Nick with the addition of a flattened cardboard box. The laughing that ensued towards the bottom when he got a little airborne was priceless.
He had a favourite Tonka Truck Digger that he used to dig up the garden with for hour hours, eventually appearing inside covered in dirt from head to toe.
The Family moved to Two Wells in 2012 which was on 2.5 acres at the base of the Barossa Valley. There was a massive 12 car shed where the boys set up their games room complete with fridge and microwave. Heaven! Nick attended Two Wells Primary School, a beautiful country town school with only about 200 students. The Two Wells days were filled with bonfires, chasing after Oscar as he ran after sheep, and living the country lifestyle. Nick also got himself involved in Air force cadets and the local RSL standing next to Alex and Adrian at ANZAC and Remembrance Day services.
Come summer time, Nick could always be found in the pool – no matter the time of day.
If Nick was missing, the first place to look was the pool. He loved water. The trampoline was another favourite until it went for a fly into the neighbour’s paddock one windy day. It was not salvageable.

At the end of 2014 the family moved to Canberra, where Nick attended Gold Creek school in Nicholls. His mother Jacqui worked at the school too which provided interesting times for
both parties.
Although he lived in Canberra, Nick spent a lot of his time jet-setting. Nick loved to travel,
he managed to get to Bali, Thailand (twice), Cambodia, Vietnam, India and the UAE. He also got
to see much of the east coast of Australia including Tassie.
A few shared tales from his travels include:
In Cambodia Nick would ask Tracey (a family friend from the UK) for beer. He would tell her “mum said it was ok for him to have 2 beers a day” – he was 15 – the cheeky monkey.
He also played a game of soccer with a group of local kids along the Bamboo railway.
He tried his hand at surfing in Bali with his mate Cody, he returned to the hotel with a little less skin and hair than he went out with and found out that 50,000 Rupiah would get the bar staff to forget to ask for ID. Nick tried his best to finish every Bintang in Bali!
Mango lassi was his go to drink in Thailand (besides beer) and he would consume them by the by the dozen.

In 2018, Nick returned to Sydney, moving in with his devoted grandparents Helen and Michael.
He commenced an air-con apprenticeship and also began to really pursue his love of MMA. He was at the UFC gym in Castle Hill every night and the highlight was a training session with Alex Volkanovski, ending up in a trip to the dentist to remove a Wisdom tooth after Alex introduced Nick to head kicks. This was followed up by an ass-kicking in his first competition, so he retired early to focus on his 1-armed boxing competitions in the kitchen with his brothers. The winner of those competitions differs depending on who’s telling the story.
After a little over a year in Sydney, Nick left his apprenticeship and made his way back to Canberra where he did his best to buy every single pair of shoes ever made as well as making
himself flammable with the amount of cologne he used to wear, he smelt nice, but could be smelt
a suburb away.

Nick will be remembered by all that knew him as a kind, fun-loving, easy-going kid. He was always the same from a small child to an adult, whether it be putting others before himself, thinking of ways to get rich quickly, or enjoying the simple things like just sitting around a fire, outside… in his white socks. Nick found a home wherever he went, whether it be with his family, his extended family or his adopted family the Tonga/Denis clan. To everyone who was there, for even the briefest moment in Nick’s life, thank you from all of us. We know he cherished every connection along the way, whether it be a party or a long drive, or just having a banana or tub of yoghurt there for him, we know it meant the world to him. At this time of unbelievable sadness, there are also many positives to reflect on and hold onto.
We love you Nick.

Nick could also be an absolute pain too – he always walked around in socks – inside and outside and always the white sock! He would wear odd socks too if he couldn’t be bothered locating a pair, so the number of odd socks in the odd sock box outweighed what was in his drawer.
Nick’s favourite colour was green, his parent’s wedding was based on this colour – and memorialised today in this service. Cameron his brother has also adopted the same colour scheme for his wedding next year.
Nick was a bit of a car buff and loved cars. The family had a Nissan skyline GTR for a time. The family would take the Skyline to Eastern creek Raceway on a Tuesday night to watch the drag races and he loved every minute of it. He had great plans for his Subaru Liberty B4 which William now has the privilege of putting back together – if he can find the parts and more importantly the keys.