Jack - today has been dominated by women, mate, time for change! When Flick asked if I'd talk this afternoon, I felt it was a tremendous privilege. I haven't known Jack all that very long, but I've known him long enough to appreciate just exactly the sort of person that he was.
His character reminds me a little bit of an occurrence that took place down on the Mornington Peninsula some three or four months back. I was driving along, delivering pies, and a rooster had crossed the road from his home, and he was feeding on some grass or whatever it was on the other side of the road. Elizabeth and I were driving down in the van, and the rooster decided, before we got to him, that he was going to go back home. So he proceeded to cross the road, but smack in the middle he stopped, stuck his head up to look around, and it proved fatal.
We cleaned him up in the truck, and all I could see in the rear vision mirror were feathers and legs and what-have-you. I thought "Oh well, goodbye rooster," so we stopped, turned around and went back, and sure enough the rooster was gone. He was dead!
What's that got to do with today? You might well ask - well it hasn't got anything except to say that the moral of that story was that if you set out on a journey, make sure you complete it, and don't stop in the middle, because you'll get flattened. And that is the story of Jack's life as far as I'm concerned. Whatever he set out to do he did, and when I listened to what Flick said today, and what the girls have written, I realized that Jack always maintained that purpose in his life, and that's when I really began to appreciate his presence in my life.
As President of the Heart & Lung Transplant Trust, I enjoyed, and needed, Jack to be there when he was. When he took over from Alex, he did that job with the perfection that he did everything else in life. He made sure that everything was done, and done properly and so on. But he didn't just do the books, he did everything else that pertained to his position as a committee member in the Heart & Lung Transplant Trust. If we had a BBQ, Jack would supply the bread, the sausages or whatever else had to go. If we were running the annual dinner dance, he would be there to organize all of the prizes, and draw the raffles, and so on -pass them out, do everything that pertained to the smooth running of that particular night.
And that is the story of Jack. To me he was a person who set an example, and not just to the immediate few people he may have met over the last period of his life. Obviously, from the number of people here, there were very many people that he met! But I believe he has set a standard amongst Transplants, worldwide, of ambition, and courage, to fulfill his dreams in a way that is the perfect example to all of us. We can leave this place, today, with the thought "I knew Jack Nolan - he was a tremendous bloke - 1 think I can take a leaf out of his book" and so we can make him live on.
Published in The Circulator No. 21, June-Aug 2000
