Father Joe Caddy – presiding over the last Melbourne gangland funeral of its kind, for George Williams – spoke to the mourners about Jesus, about doing good and living a good life. They were not all the key demographic, but they listened anyway.

George, who was notorious gangland criminal Carl Williams' father, died ten days ago of a heart attack, aged 69. Carl is dead, his skull pulverised in Barwon Prison after a life of drug manufacturing, drug running and killings. Carl's brother Shane is dead – he used heroin. Their mother Barbara is dead. Suicide.

"We all fall over," said Father Caddy, who had come to St Theresa's in Essendon from his own Catholic parish in Fitzroy for the job. "But all people have goodness."

The funeral was small with around 70 people inside the church, divided along family lines: the Williams's on one side, and those close to George's partner of the last ten years, Kathleen, on the other.

Roberta Williams, Carl's ex-wife, broke down during her eulogy for George, the man she called "Poppa George". It is said in police circles that Purana taskforce – the Victorian police unit still investigating aspects of Carl's life and death – paid George a visit on his deathbed. George, a convicted drug trafficker, said nothing, as ever.

Before Carl died he indicated he might talk to police about the killing of police informer Terence Hodson, and his wife, the case which could be the key to unlocking the last of Melbourne's gangland secrets.

"We always got along amazing," said Roberta of George. "Your place was where everyone came and felt comfortable".

George had called Roberta's daughter Brianna "beautiful" even though Carl was not her father: "Bert," he told Roberta once, "she's beautiful. Just like her Pop".

Roberta sobbed in church as she called Carl "the most amazing person ever to exist" and said George was never the same after his son's brutal death behind bars in 2010.

"He lost his spark," she said.

Dhakota, Carl and Roberta's daughter, told the church her grandfather was a "smart-arse….I guess that comes with being a Williams".

It was a humble, blue-collar send-off. No gold-plated $A30,000 coffin from America like Carl had. George's was plain wood, holy water scattered on it as it was carried from the church by his pallbearers. He had been baptised a Catholic. His former wife Barb's funeral was also at St Theresa's, Carl's was here, Dhakota was christened here and the funerals of both the Moran brothers (the Williams' family's arch gangland enemies) were held here all those years ago, when these people were still shooting each other over drug money.

New crime bosses run Melbourne now. Witness all the shootings, most not yet fatal, around the northern suburbs: the drug money still flows, but into different hands.

Father Caddy recognised not only the "grief" but also the "tension" of the day, and there was tension: Roberta made a big play of several phone calls before the funeral inside the church, and there was some kind of misunderstanding afterwards between two people from a different camp, but it seemed to go well for most.

Yet simmering away in the background is a family dispute over $7000 worth of jewels which were in George's house before he died but not after.

As always a man's choice of funeral song tells us much. George Williams chose The Gambler - "…know when to walk away and know when to run…." - a song about a bluffer and a chancer trying to make money without working and always, always keeping his mouth shut.