Later Life
In 1971, due to the decline in status and significance of the Albert Medal, the British Government announced that living recipients of the decoration were invited to exchange their medals in substitution for the George Cross, and would henceforth formally become recipients of the latter award. All six living Australian Albert Medal recipients at the time opted to accept the offer, with Chalmers and four others travelling to London to receive their awards. The five men, Stanley Gibbs, Robert Kavanaugh, William McAloney, Dick Richards and Chalmers, were presented with their George Crosses at an investiture ceremony in Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 July 1972.
Chalmers retained his affiliation with the Surf Life Saving Association for the rest of his life, later being presented with their twenty-five and fifty-year service awards. During his life, Chalmers was employed as an ironworker, and later a rigger, at the Balmain shipyards. On 12 July 1972, Chalmers was presented with his George Cross by Queen Elizabeth II. Aged 88, Chalmers died at his home in Bondi Junction on 29 March 1982; his ashes were scattered on Bondi Beach.
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Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim—objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“When we speak the word “life,” it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)