It really was a quintessential Australian summer’s day. Hot, sunny and bright. An embryonic sea breeze wisping up. Ingrid and I took a bus, alive with chatter and thick with the aroma of suntan cream, from Cremorne to Manly, and then walked along the beach promenade from South Steyne through North Steyne, and then up the Queenscliff headland. Down below at Freshwater there was a surf carnival.

They’d finished the belt and reel and were lining up the surfboats, which began to race as we watched. You understand clearly what it feels like to be an Australian at such times. The surfboats were racing nine at a time, and the surfers at the northern end of the beach were being herded away by inflatable rescue boats (or ‘rubber duckies’ as my son Simon  [left], IRB Captain at Freshwater, calls them, providing the correct technical appellation). Freshwater has hosted a surf lifesaving carnival for clubs from beaches throughout the continent each Australia Day since 1912, Club president John Swan told me.

The morning papers were laden with the names of people receiving Orders of Australia, and I was pleased to see some former PNG colleagues receiving honours. Both, as it happened, had been at the University of PNG. Prof Alan Gilbert, now at Manchester University, was awarded an AO for services to tertiary education, including the promotion of learning in developing countries. And Dr Diane Langmore [right], now a senior fellow at ANU,was awarded
an AM, specifically for her editorship of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, which I have drawn on heavily from time to time in researching the lives of a number of ASOPA identities.

As a footnote, I might add that Ilona Lee of Rushcutters Bay also received an AM, in her case for community service. I mention her name because she was nominated by my wife Ingrid, who was as delighted by her friend's success as the recipient herself.