Some time ago, when I visited WATERWAYS' Batehaven office to renew my boat license, I needed a Justice of the Peace to witness my signature. The nearest JP I knew was several kilometres down Beach Road in Batemans Bay but the staff at WATERWAYS directed me to a property valuer's office next door. The valuer, a Richard Langshaw, was also a JP, I was told.
As I walked into their office, the man himself came towards me, shook my hand, and ask, "And how are you, Peter?"
After I had picked up my jaw from the floor, I asked how he knew my name. "I never forget the man who gave me my first job!" he said.
Of course! Young Richard Langshaw! It was early 1979 and I had just returned from my latest overseas assignment with the Penang Port Commission in Malaysia and, with nothing else to do, had taken a job as accountant with "Kirk's Queanbeyan Truck Centre" in Canberra.
I 'automated' their accounting processes by installing a mechanical ledger machine and hiring young Richard, who had just come out of school, to operate it.
I didn't stay long and moved on to bigger and better things. And so did young Richard who became a registered real estate valuer with his own firm of Langshaw Valuations (although after reading on its website that "Langshaw Valuations, under its previous trading entity, was established in 1964", I guess it must have been started by his father).
Anyway, it's always good to see a young man succeeding in life! Congratulations, Richard, and well done!
