One of the strangest graves in the ancient Western Road cemetery at Parramatta (NSW) is that of a parrot. For twenty years the bird entertained travellers at one of the hotels, and the wife of the hotelkeeper become so attached to it that when it died she purchased a grave, hired a mourning coach and, after employing the local undertaker to make the coffin, read the burial service over the remains at the grave-side herself – “Gwydir.”

– Smith’s Weekly (Sydney, NSW) Saturday 5 June 1926