Tonight at 8.30 ABC TV shows the first episode of "Doc Martin" Clunes' "Islands of Australia" with a very cameo appearance of David Glasheen, the Millionaire Castaway on Restoration Island. Are you reading this, Hubert Hofer in Cooktown?
Last time I spoke with Dave, he was missing female company.
Be careful what you're wishing for, Dave - click here
And, yes, "Doc Martin" then visits my old "home", Thursday Island, where I used to work and live in 1977 and for which I still have a soft spot. (Why do we miss people and places only when they are no longer around?) He meets Diver Dan outside Mona's souvenir shop of which I wrote about in my travelogue when I visited the island again in 2005:
"I called in at a souvenir shop in the main street where I was met by a young Ethiopian, who had somehow got himself married to a T.I. girl. His wife's mother owned the shop which he now managed. They had three lovely children but after five years on T.I., he seemed to be getting restless. He was enrolled in some business studies and wanted to become an accountant but felt that the longer he stayed on T.I. the more his self-confidence eroded. He didn't know that he was suffering from - nor had he heard of the term - "rock fever" which originated among servicemen stationed in Hawaii during World War II. It meant a sudden and desperate need to escape to the mainland."
And he went across to Friday Island where Leo the Hun lived (and died) - click here - but where "Doc Martin" visited the Kazu Pearl Farm. More memories for me because during my time on Thursday Island in 1977 I befriended a Burmese marine biologist, Victor Aung, who had worked there. The sheer isolation and loneliness finally drove him away from there and the last I heard from him was decades ago when he had taken a job as a mail-sorter at the Sydney GPO. Where are you now, Victor?
If you're too busy tonight to watch "Islands of Australia", you can tune in again on Sunday at 3.55 in the afternoon or, if you have access to iview, go to iview and click on Episode 1. Say hello to mad-as-a-cut-snake David Glasheen and his sidekick, the lovely Miranda. Tell him I sent you.
P.S. Read more about David Glasheen in the TheHustle.
