Zoom in and check out the platform shoes worn in 1975 (24)
My 29th Birthday Party Invitation held at McDonalds Railway Square in 1979 (28)
A photograph taken in my office in 1982 (31)
"He Who Laughed With His Tail" my great mate "Ben The Wonder Dog" 1980-1995.
Ben was so intelligent friends often described him as a human being with four legs!
Having a quick bike ride up a back laneway with Benny.
This is good …. I took ‘Ben the Wonder Dog’ for a run on Balmoral Beach one cold,
windswept afternoon on Anzac Day 1982. It was raining and the place was completely deserted,
but a Mosman Council Ranger jumped out from behind the bushes and issued me with a fine.
Here is one of the resulting letters Ben wrote to the Council as a matter of principle.
(You may need to enlarge to view this one).
With the great Jack Nicklaus, then the worlds best golfer
who was competing in the 1982 Australian Open (31)
My first Parachute Descent in April 1983 (32)
My 33rd Birthday Invitation which was in the form of a Court Summons and were posted
in a replica court envelope. Unknown to me, one of my friends had previously been
in a little trouble with the law so when his father saw the envelope he blew a fuse! 1983 (32)
Another skinny boy shot taken at a vintage car rally in 1984 (33)
My first time on television was on Maureen Duvall’s “Good Morning Sydney” and I often appeared
as a guest in the 1980’s. This photograph was taken from a television set in 1985 (34)
Competing in the Sydney Triathlon in 1986 (35)
My 40th Birthday Party Invitation, which I sent to 30 people
and more than 200 ended up attending (Another one which may require enlarging to read).
40th Birthday Party Photo in 1990 – Check out the candle hat! (40)
Scuba Diving in 1992 (41)
Welcoming Australia's then Prime Minister John Howard MP to the 2004 Ryde Aquatic Festival,
an annual family event organised by the Rotary Club of Gladesville to raise money for worthwhile
community projects, at which I have been the Master of Ceremonies for over a decade (53)
A number of prominent local identities asked me to be the Chairman of the Steering
Committee to overseer the setting up of a Community Bank at North Ryde.
Here photographed for The Weekly Times Newspaper with Anthony Roberts MP
and popular local businessman Tony Fedele.
The bank was set up and opened in record time in 2005 (54)
With Tigers Ben Galea and the NRL Premiership Winning Trophy - December 2005 (55)
(Photograph courtesy of the TWT)
I am Member for Life of the RSPCA and a great supporter of the wonderful
work the RSPCA carries out in retrieving cruelly treated and lost animals.
Unfortunately most people think the RSPCA is totally funded by the state government.
However it costs about 22 million dollars every year to run the RSPCA in NSW alone,
while our state government’s annual contribution is a paltry $200,000.
Therefore the RSPCA has to mainly rely on public donations to keep its doors open.
Yet it is a proven statistic people who own a companion animal will require 25% less
health care in their lives and it costs the state government billions of dollars every
year to run the NSW medical system. Therefore wouldn’t it be cheaper if the government
were to ‘cut out the middle man’ and reduce the cost of running the health
system by diverting 20 million dollars every year to help run the RSPCA?
I was recently invited to inspect the RSPCA’s Sydney facility which is undergoing major
and expensive reconstruction works and pictured above are the RSPCA’s hard working
Chief Executive Officer, Bernie Murphy (standing in the white shirt) with Russell Becker,
and in front, The Mayor of the City of Ryde, Councillor Ivan Petch and Kamahl,
who is holding one of the little puppies being cared for at the Centre. May 2006 (55).
With Australia's leading radio broadcaster, 2GB's Alan Jones in March 2007 (56)
Being presented with a special Certificate of Appreciation by the
then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard (56)
A Publicity Poster for the 2007 Rotary "Carols Spectacular" which is a wonderful free family evening
and is now considered the largest Carols held in Sydney with an audience of around 13,000 people (56)
A casual photograph taken in August 2008 (57)
Ryde Citizen of the Year Nomination in January 2009 (58)
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