He cannot but with measures
fit the honours
Which we devise him.
Coriolanus Act two Scene two.
I did not know Dick well, but our paths crossed regularly while
I was working in Alice Springs in the early 1980s. My most vibrant memory is of
walking down a street and seeing Dick riding his bicycle towards me, waving
enthusiastically as he shouted a greeting and passed by. His travels into the
desert with Aboriginal people were legendary.
As I mentioned to a friend who emailed me, Dick lived life to
the full; a life brimming over with enthusiasm and good humour.
His Wikipedia page (link here) gives a sense
of his considerable achievements, but understates his extraordinary affability,
sense of humour, and determination to understand and then explain to the wider
Australian community the sophistication of desert life and culture.
A reader emailed me with the folllowing comment:
You have
expressed it very well, Mike. Dick
Kimber was a great fellow - worthy of all the honours we could devise for him.
Like you, I did
not know him well, but I would over the years typically meet him on the street
and he would always invest generously in conversation. He seemed to know the remote places out west
of Alice Springs as well as anyone, and from all accounts to be highly regarded
by the relevant countrymen.
I last saw him
at a Strehlow Conference event in 2018.
His health was at that time already significantly impaired, but he was
nonetheless making every effort to engage and to contribute - a gracious and
knowledgeable man.
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