Valé Terry Johal
Some time in the early 2000, Terry and I were both eagerly blogging away to our audiences of tens of people when we came into each other's orbits. We had mutual friends through RMIT. He was a PhD student lecturing in communications. We had mutual friends and several had insisted that I had to meet Terry. We arranged to meet at a cafe on Lygon St in Carlton and were quickly close friends.
I'm vague on the chronology, but having finished my Masters of Public Advocacy and Action I decided to put together a small advocacy group - The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice. Terry was the first person I asked to join and while many people came and went from that organisation but we were the consistent core. During our most active period, we ran a monthly forum discussing a wide range of topics with guest speakers. We started off running them in a room at Trades Hall, and later found a home at the Stalk Hotel (which is now an apartment block but was a bloody good pub).
I have very fond memories of meeting him for lunch while I was working in the City. I'd meet him for Chilli Chicken at a restaurant opposite Melbourne Central on LaTrobe St. Our discussions were always wide ranging and particularly entertaining when Terry had something to get off his chest and would rant at length, often with a range of what I assumed were pre-rehearsed lines about whatever it was that was annoying him on that particular day.
I moved to London in 2010 but we kept in touch. While I was there we did a few podcasts called Still Angry which were a lot of fun. He was always considerably more prepared than I was. In the first episode he quoted the Dylan Thomas poem he was so fond of:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Terry never stopped raging.
In 2016 he did some travel, partly to get some focus time to start working on a book and he wrote a fantastic blog while he was on the road. The trip was cut short due to poor health and he was finally diagnosed with MND in 2017.
It took quite a while before he was ready to speak to people again, but I occasionally emailed him in an attempt to get his attention. I found this email in the archive which felt like a pretty good reflection of our relationship:
You're the only one I can think of that would appreciate this - it made
me laugh out loud:
'It’s Fukuyama I feel sorry for. He must go into his study of a time and
just bang his head against the wall until it bleeds. “Idiot idiot idiot.
Why did you write that? Everyone’s laughing at you.”'
Guy Rundle in today's Crikey.
Around 2019 he began sporadically blogging about his experience with MND which was a welcome window into his world.
Despite my best efforts, I only got to see him once after his diagnosis, around Christmas time last year. He could only communicate via a machine which tracked his eye movement, but he was still as witty as ever and I was so thrilled to have been invited to his little get together.
Terry died on the 12st June 2024.
He had a huge impact on me. He really gave himself to his friends and expected the same in return. He will be dearly missed.