The significance would not have been lost on any of those who gathered at the St Stanislaus’ College Performing Arts Centre for the funeral of the man some knew as “Bruce the builder”.

The businessman, developer and former civic leader, who was born in Far North Queensland in 1939, arrived with his wife Rosie and family on holiday in Bathurst in 1974 and never left.

The speakers on Tuesday – mayor Gary Rush and Mr Bolam’s children Megan Bolam-Williams, Melissa McDonogh and Andrew Bolam – spoke about different aspects of Mr Bolam’s life, but the same themes came up.

One was his intense love of his family, another was his willingness to help those who needed it and another was his almost boundless energy.

Cr Rush said a man like Mr Bolam – who owned a number of businesses in Bathurst and redeveloped buildings throughout the CBD - only comes around once in the lifetime of a city.

“He was a dedicated and true Bathurstian,” he said.

Ms Bolam-Williams said her father was not an impressive student as a young man.

“In his final year of school, one particular teacher went to great lengths to tell him ‘Bolam, you will never amount to anything’,” she said.

“This had a profound influence. He recalls saying to himself ‘I’ll show them’.”

Ms Bolam-Williams said a pattern quickly developed as her father purchased and developed businesses: he would start with something small and make it bigger through “hard work, bloody-minded determination, creative flair and, often, with Mum’s hard labour”.

“He always sold it [the business] stronger and bigger than it began,” she said. 

She said sometimes the answer to what a business needed came from left field.

She recalled her father buying a motel on the edge of town and deciding it needed something striking.

“Being a Queenslander at heart, he was familiar with big things,” she said.

The big thing he built for his motel was the now iconic gold-panning man.

Andrew Bolam said his father was a natural leader, a born entrepreneur and a man of big ideas.

“He was very interested in people, very down to earth, very positive,” he said.

But he said people could not really understand Mr Bolam until they understood how central his family was to his life.

He said his father died surrounded by his family – “deep inside the love of his family”.

Ms McDonogh made the crowd laugh when she recalled her father – whose later property developments in Bathurst would include the former Tindalls Corner eyesore, Verto on Howick Street and the former Waratah Hotel on George Street – joining a game of Monopoly with her and her siblings during their childhood.

“He bought everything he landed on, wheeled and dealed and wanted us to negotiate with him to buy properties,” she said.

“The game was over within an hour.” 

Mr Bolam ran for council in 1984, was elected and became mayor of Bathurst at his first meeting.

He was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2014 and was named one of 200 living legends during Bathurst’s bicentennial celebrations in 2015.

He died on September 17.

Mr Bolam’s cap and gardening gloves were other items chosen to symbolise his life.