I did find when I googled Thiele’s Heysen biography that it was listed in a couple of second hand dealers, so it was no doubt out of print.

One thing I didn’t mention in comments was that I heard another radio segment where they described how Colin Thiele had meticulously planned his own funeral arrangements so that his family wouldn’t have to worry at that time of stress. He had even written an obituary for his wife, who hadn’t read it yet. He was a practical, well-organised man always thoughtful of others.

A sad loss, but somehow dying peacefully in your 80s, your life’s work done, is not so shocking as losing someone like Steve Irwin. Wonder if he could have ever become a wise old man, or if he would just have become a lovably crazy old coot.

The latter, I think for Steve Irwin.

I think Colin Thiele would have known he was in the home straight and must have felt a sense of satisfaction that came with such achievements and such a worthwhile life’s work.

Life Matters replayed a 2004 interview with Julie McCrossin this morning. Apparently he had seven joint replacements because of the arthritis. He must have had it when I knew him in the late 1960s but you would never have known.

I read somewhere that he’d had a significant heart operation in 2000.

Recently I lost one who was 92 and still driving a car. She had lost her husband just a few years ago, but just got on with her life, starting new projects until the end. At the same time she was trimming the ship and a few months before she died gave most of her books away. The last conversation we had was about what she was going to tell “them up there” when she got there.

I imagine Thiele would have had the same sense of resignation but would not have let it prevent him from being positive each day.

Three v. interesting aussies down this week.

There was also a glimpse of Jim Dwyer, Supervisor of School Libraries in South Australia for many years, in the scene where Thiele was being presented with a patchwork quilt made by all the schools in SA.

Jim was a good friend and colleague in those days. From 1969 for 9 years I had the total privilege and good fortune to occupy the equivalent role in Queensland, where we worked on the policies, the provisions and the support systems that transformed the school library scene in Queensland on the flood tide of first Commonwealth and then Whitlam Schools Commission money and made scenes like those children in the library interacting with a real author possible.