Hans Moehrke and I had met when he stayed at the SAVOY HOTEL in Piraeus where I was a permanent resident during my "Greek days". We breasted the bar on many nights and over many drinks, bemoaning the state of the world and our place in it, in three languages: Afrikaans, English and German.
We were both in commodity trading: I mainly in grains, in lots of 20,000, 30,000, even 50,000 tonnes at a time, whereas Hans was more into pork bellies for which there wasn't much demand from my Saudi masters.
We stayed in touch after my return to Australia in 1985, sometimes through an occasional phone call but more often through letters which became more sporadic after Hans had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease which made it impossible for him to write.
His last message was a small parcel containing a detective novel by Colin Dexter with the now very prescient title, "Death Is Now My Neighbour", because less than a year later, on this day in 2015, Hans passed away at his home in Cape Town. Totsiens, Hans!
Rest in Peace, Hans.
People die only when we forget them.
I shan't forget you.
