Having once again given up the comforts of my recently acquired domesticity for the unpredictability of overseas contract work, I was back in Townsville three years later, hoping to pick up from where I had left off in 1982.
Three years changes a lot of things; it had changed me, first in Saudi Arabia and then Greece, and it had changed my friends in Townsville, and I was very lucky to find new ones in Elizabeth and John Gamauf.
Despite their gentle encouragement, I was never quite able to pick up from where I had left off and relocated to Sydney several months later, but Elizabeth and John stayed in touch and I visited again in 1999.
Elizabeth and John were those rare human beings who become your friends for life and I was shattered when those lives were cut short. If the only immortality we can ever hope for is to be remembered by our friends, then their immortality is assured because I won't forget them.
It's been five years since John's passing, and to help his children and grandchildren celebrate his life I've obtained from the National Archives the documents that led to his coming to Australia in 1958 - click here.
RIP John! We won't forget you!
