Many strings to 80-year-old Geraldton man Alexander Elliot’s bow

He can make musical instruments, but says he cannot play them. However, Alexander Elliot won’t have to play the music today when he turns 80, family and friends will be doing it for him. A well-respected maker of aluminium and magnesium violins, he played the ukulele for a few years, but was a self-confessed “plunker”. Playing music seems the only thing this gentle-mannered man didn’t do. Geraldton-born but reared at a settlement for Aboriginal people where his mother was a teacher, Mr Elliot achieved many things. He’s been a farmer, mechanic and machinery manager, real estate salesman, shearer, truck driver and he’s designed websites. And he’s also done his fair share of parachuting — and made telescopes. “Life’s been good to me,” he said.