Retaw Boyce’s mother Julie was shopping in Bellingen when she heard the sirens of emergency services leaving town.

Driving home, she was diverted around the crash site but she could see the car looked like the one belonging to her son Retaw.

“It was horrific,” Julie said. “Here I am going around an accident and it’s my son. I arrived an hour after it happened.”

Retaw Boyce, 32, was well known in Bellingen as a gifted musician and a gentle man.

He moved to Homeland three years ago, to live alongside his mother Julie, his brother Reyne and his sister River.

Before that, he had been living in Sydney with his father Andre Storer, but he often visited his family in Bellingen and was a familiar face around town, performing on his violin.

“The town’s known him since he was 15,” Julie said. “He mostly did beautiful classical pieces, mixed with evergreen things. He’d set Bellingen on a cloud of beauty.”

Retaw began busking on the recorder at four and a half years old, and by five he was earning good money and was able to buy special things his single mother couldn’t afford, like Lego monorails and robots and even a trampoline.

He began piano at five and the violin at six.

“Music’s been his whole life,” Julie said.

The tragic accident that cut that life short happened at 10:30am on August 12.

“He was turning from Darkwood Rd into Waterfall Way when he was blindsided by a 4WD heading towards Dorrigo,” Julie said. “There’s a blind corner there where the bank is too high on the side of the road. He didn’t see the car. He had no idea what hit him.”

Julie wished to put on record her deep gratitude to Kylie Pettit from NSW Police for her kindness and support.

She also wanted to extend her sympathies to the occupants of the other vehicle.

“My heart goes out to the two young people who have to live through this unfortunate experience,” she said.