I welcome you all here this evening, we who have come from the far corners of Brian Medlin’s life to be here tonight. Apart from Brian and Christine, I don’t think anyone e here knows everyone but we all share one very valuable thing -  the friendship of Brian and Christine.

There are a few people who have agreed to speak briefly this evening. They know who they are and we’ll hear from them as the evening unwinds.

We are here tonight to celebrate a life and to mark a great Australian. The joy for us tonight is in having Brian as a friend, in having him here tonight among us and in knowing that he has right of reply.

Before I start I wish to say that it is almost inevitable that, at some point, I will say something with which Brian will disagree.  I want you - and him  - to know that I don't care.

I also have to warn you that I’m given to double negatives.

As well as Philosophy, I studied English at Flinders University and I recall one of the academics addressing us on the subject of the double negative .  “In English,” the lecturer > explained, “a double negative forms a positive.  In some languages, > such as Russian for instance, a double negative is still a negative.  However, there is no language wherein a double > positive can form a negative.”

Australian voice from the back of the room piped up. “Yeah, right.”

Yesterday, as I was preparing these remarks in my office, I received chance phone calls from two friends who, to the best of my knowledge, don’t know Brian. I told them what I was doing and I was struck by their responses. Both were deeply reverential. Again, I stress that neither of them knows Brian. Not knowing him and not having been camping with him, perhaps, accounts for the unqualified nature of their reverence.

One, a man of about my age, said of Brian . “…when I was at Pulteney, that bloke was responsible for many detentions and at one least public caning. Marching in the Vietnam moratorium in full school uniform was not exactly smiled upon at Pulteney. Just say thanks to him from me, will you? That bloke taught me a great deal about how the world really works and those lessons have stayed with me to this day.”

The other, a dear friend from Canberra, asked me to say to Brian that she remains deeply grateful to him for his courage and his leadership at the time of moratorium. Like many of us she remembers the famous photo of Brian being dragged away from the head of the march. She remembers the haircut and the beard trim being paraded on the front page of that god-awful rag, the News, a paper which by virtue of transmogrification, still insults our intelligence on a daily basis  - now under the banner of the Advertiser.

So it was yesterday, quite unprompted, that two people who don’t even know him yesterday professed their gratitude to Brian Medlin. And there was my organising thought, as Michelle Grattan puts it. So I scrapped my first draft and started again.

Brian, simply thanks.

Thanks for a friendship that has spanned thirty years. Who would have thought that the radical professor and the stammering mick would have forged such an enduring one?

Thanks for Redgum, undoubtedly one of the high points of my life. Without your course, Politics and Art, and your enthusiasm for what Mick, Verity and I wrote and performed that night, Redgum would never have seen the light of day. Given the idiosyncratic nature of the songs, the whining, nasal delivery and the imitators that followed our tracks, there are as many who would condemn you as would commend you.

Thanks for your intellectual rigor. You once wrote me a reference in which you were fairly fulsome in your praise of me  - except in reference to my academic achievements. With all the elegance and deadly precision for which you are famous, you remarked that … “Mr Schumann is a better philosopher than some …”

I might have emerged from your tutelage with a less than perfect grasp of Wittgenstein and the intricacies of the Blue Book but I did take with me an ability to mount a defence of the most patent bullshit, astride a wall of seemingly impregnable logic and semantics. It never fooled you but it has stood me in great stead elsewhere, notably Canberra and at lunch on Gouger Street.

I carry with me your intolerance of callousness, hypocrisy, unreason and clever stupidity on the part of those who should know better. As I advance in years I am even less tolerant of this than I used to be. You may rest secure in the knowledge that, where necessary, I shall carry on your tradition of the supercilious peer over the top of the spectacles, the acid tongue and the merciless Exocet below the waterline of pomposity and cant

I thank you for that.

But I also thank you for teaching me when to hold my fire. Your genuine love of people from all walks of life, as demonstrated by this eclectic little group tonight, showed me the virtues and the rewards of patience and humility.

Thanks for taking Denny and Matt and Adelaide as your own. We are all profoundly grateful for the stories and poems you taped for the kids when they were little. If you knew just how often they insisted on listening to one of Brian’s tapes when they went to bed, you would know that your time was well spent and you would be glad you chose to read those stories on to top-of-the-range audio cassettes. Even at the age of 20 and 17, it is hard to rid Matthew and Adelaide of the belief that you are, in fact, Gandalf. I’m not sure that they are not wrong.

And thanks for sharing with me your ongoing wonder of the world around you. In a world of stress, overdrafts and family and social obligations, you taught me to stop, look, wonder and learn.

Others will speak tonight and I am conscious of not wanting to say too much and perhaps, pre-empting their remarks.

In conclusion, let me wish Brian, Christine and everyone here a great evening of food, wine and conversation. I would like to acknowledge and thank my wife Denny who organised the venue and the catering and a host of other things I wouldn’t have thought of. Without her organisation, this evening would not have happened.

And finally, Brian, thanks for the gentle corrections on the very few occasions when I have been in error. Tonight has not been one of them.