Friends and colleagues of Tamara Farrell, who was murdered in the Ballarat suburb of Canadian at the weekend, have paid tribute to a “lovely” woman just shy of her 32nd birthday.
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Troy Boon, who used to work as a bus driver for the same company as Ms Farrell, described her as “absolutely bloody awesome”.
“It didn’t matter how much of a bad day you were having, she could cheer you up. She was bright, bubbly, she had time for everyone," he told The Courier. "It didn’t matter what it was, she’d give 110 per cent.”
“I was in touch last week. We shared the same birthday. Next Wednesday is both our birthdays.
She’s going to be missed by a helluva lot of people. She was just a ray of sunshine
- Troy Boon, friend of Tamara Farrell
"I’m still really in shock. You see it in the news all the time, you see people murdered, bodies dumped. Then when it’s someone you know, it is [a very difficult thing to process] especially when you were only talking to her the other day.
“She’s going to be missed by a helluva lot of people. She was just a ray of sunshine.”
A friend who contacted The Courier but did not wish to be named, described her as “a shining light to those who knew her. Will miss her sense of humour and joy for life.”
Derek Polyak, who met Ms Farrell through a a mutual friend at a Sydney music festival four years ago and remained friends since, remembered her as “absolutely lovely. She was somebody that always made you feel happy to be around.
“She was a really good person to talk to, no matter what - she was always happy. The biggest regret I’ve got is that I never got to see her [again] before this actually happened. It hit me pretty hard. There’s nothing more tragic than when you see good people go.”
On Tuesday, Ballarat's deputy mayor Cr Jim Rinaldi also said that he had known Ms Farrell personally. "She moved to Ballarat only two weeks ago from the Melbourne area," he said at an emotional press conference.
"She was a person with a great spirit and a wonderful attitude and loved by her co-workers."
There were numerous tributes on the Facebook page of Ballarat Coachlines where Ms Farrell had worked as a bus driver in recent months.
One passenger remembered: “Tamara brought me home after my last overseas trip. I remember thinking how lovely it was that she was one of the first people I saw to welcome me home after a long flight. She was a lovely woman.”
"What a lovely helpful person she was to the passengers. This is simply awful," read another message.
Another friend said it was “devastating for us all”, writing “Toottill Pip my dear Toottill Pip”, which was described as Ms Farrell’s favourite saying. They wrote that she used it “Every day, every day! But no more.”
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