BY ALEX DRISCOLL
Senior Citizen of the Year and SES stalwart Ian Hockling says he would rather be out in a storm helping others
For 78-year-old Ian Hockling, volunteering is simply something that you get on with. Deputy unit commander (operations) of the Pittwater Warringah SES unit, Ian has spent a lifetime giving back to the community. This was recognised when Northern Beaches Council named him Senior Citizen of the Year 2025.
“I was absolutely stunned,” says the Bilgola resident, reflecting on the call he received from council telling him of the honour. “I feel that nothing I do is out of the ordinary. Many senior citizens, we just do it because it needs to be done.”
Yet for one week out of every four, Ian gives up his time to serve as the SES duty officer. In this role, he must manage emergency alerts, coordinate responses and allocate teams based on the specific requirements of each situation. “I probably put in around 1,500 hours a year,” the veteran volunteer surmises.
When Ian’s children were young, he was an active member of the school P&C, Scouts and Cubs. Some 16 years ago, upon retirement, he joined the SES – “I needed to something to replace work time. Otherwise I thought my wife would go crazy!” he laughs.
“I joined up with no expectations other than just going out on the trucks, helping clear up after storms.
“Everyone thinks it’s just trees, but we do a lot of searches for missing people, for example someone who has dementia and wandered off from their retirement home, kids that are missing in the bush; people that are intent on self-harm – and we have to find them before they do.”
For Ian, his time as a volunteer has been about giving, firmly believing that one cannot go through life without giving back to the community: “You can’t keep taking from society. I would rather be out in the storms helping than sitting at home thinking, ‘I hope someone comes and helps me.’”
It is this spirit of giving that has led Ian to have his feet on the ground during some of the past five year’s most significant natural disaster events in Sydney. He helped during the clean- up in the wake of the huge storm that swept through the Northern Beaches in 2020, when the unit had to respond to 800 calls in one afternoon for assistance.
Outside of theBeaches, Ian went to the Hawkesbury region when it flooded. “We were running people up and down the river in flood boats, taking food to the isolated communities, taking fodder for the animals,” he says. The SES also evacuated ‘two very disabled’ elderly women in wheelchairs to safety.
However, if there are two things Ian wishes people understood more about the SES, it’s the fact that the organisation is almost entirely volunteer run – volunteers who of course do not get paid. “Everyone in an orange uniform (at the SES) is a volunteer, and I think people forget that,” he affirms, lamenting the fact that many jobs he is called too are simply people ‘trying to get a tree cut down for free.’
If you are looking for any affirmation of the impact an individual like Ian can have, look no further than the fact his son, 48, has also joined the SES, and it looks likely his grandson, 15, will jump at the opportunity too when old enough.
“That would be cool to have a grandfather, son and grandson in the same unit!”