Jum Wallner

Jum and I were at Wesley College at Sydney University together for three years in the mid-80s.

He was studying vet science.

I was studying law.

We'd been to the same school, actually, Canberra Grammar, but I was a year ahead of him and I took a year off.

He was my first friend there and my best friend there.

I don't know if I was his best friend.

He had about a dozen best friends.

In fact, 10 years later when he

got married, there were literally 14 of us who thought we were going to be his best man.

And when Jason Williams got picked, the others considered, we considered legal action.

He was a big person.

He was a big personality.

He was funny, smart, insightful, but also, which I think is less usual with 19-year-old boy men, whatever we were, he was really kind and good-hearted.

I think that often humour is a great bonding device for young men, but it's also...

and sometimes it can be wielded skilfully and everyone laughs and sometimes it can be a bit of a sword that cuts deep.

And John was amazing at seeing when, you know, when you were bantering in the corridor and someone was copping a bit, he'd just detect it before anyone else and he'd just draw fire and effortlessly pull the attention away, often by kind of something self-deprecating and he took care of people.

Well, I was a year above him at school.

I knew him a bit.

Yeah.

It wasn't just me, by the way.