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I was born in Guildford NSW (Australia) on June 14, 1952 and always thought that I was an only child. I lived at Ermington from around 1956 until 1981 when dad sold out and moved to Queensland. Mum had died in October 1979 and dad took up with a woman from his Bowling Club who I was not all that fond of and they decided to sell both their homes and move to the Gold coast in Queensland. I spent most of the next four years either sleeping on floors at friends homes renting shitty little flats until a mate got me to move in and share with him in Balmain where I met my wife, Shirley. We started going toghether in January 1986, living together in the April and were married in the backyard of her home at West Ryde on December 20, 1986 with some 200+ guests (many of whom are no longer with us) in attendance. It was a great wedding and what both Shirley and I consider to be possibly the best party we've ever been to. We sold up and moved to Katoomba in January 1989 - our own personal 'seachange' if you wish. Then, in June 1991 I received a phone call from a young man in Goulburn NSW telling me his mother believed she was my 'full-blood' sister. She was! Nola had been born Miriam Rose Jeffery to my parents in July 1944 and had been immediately adopted out. It transpired that I was an uncle to at least six, great-uncle to many more and great-great-uncle to at least another five or six. Dad did manage to meet his daughter and grandchildren before he died in mid-1992 and my sister did manage to find her father and brother before she too passed away on New Years Day 2000 after suffering greatly with cancer. She was 55 at the time! On our twentieth wedding anniversary in December 2006, Shirley and I were informed that I have a very advanced prostate cancer. Advanced enough that it has moved out the prostate gland and into other parts of the body (we know not where) and is consequently inoperable and incurable. I have been placed on female hormone implant therapy which are injected every three months via a bloody great big needle in the belly in an effort to send the cancer into remission and this appears to have been successful. The problem is that the cancer will eventually become immune and to counter this the intention is to take me off the therapy for a year or two at the end of 2007 to try and maintain the effectiveness of the treament and increase my lifespan a few extra years. No point in worrying about the bloody thing - I have it and that's all there is to it. One interesting side effect is that my hair is growing back and I may well have to change my nickname (BEACHHEAD) at some point. For all that, I must admit that I am a happy man as I have been married for the twenty years to my true love, soul mate and darling friend in Shirley.
ADDENDA:
Many of you will know by now that I lost my darling to pneumonia on Saturday - August 11, 2007 at around 4:15am (Sydney Time).
I am saddened at my great loss and thank all my friends who have responded with their love and compassion in these past days. Thank you one and all!
"On Your Way Down" - Gov't Mule - Deepest End
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqE6ghPucxU