Digger - 'just a boy from the bush'

Digger was on home leave in 1972 when I met him at a poker game in Brisbane.

Then a wide-eyed cadet on the Brisbane Telegraph, I was captivated by his tales of derring-do in foreign parts and he encouraged me to join AAP, which I managed to do later that year after he had put in a word to editor Lyall Rowe.

As he later said when recalling his experiences in Vietnam: "It was tremendously exciting. You're covering a war and drinking French wine - I was just a boy from the bush."

Brian lived life very hard, and in the messages I have received in the past 24 hours, most have expressed surprise that he lived as long as he did.

He was widely loved and admired, and the Brits in particular were captivated by his effortless Aussie bush charm.

A great nephew born in Queensland a few weeks ago carries the second name Digger out of respect.

In 1976 I was working in AAP's London bureau in 85 Fleet St and organised "An Australian XI" to play against my village club side Wadhurst in Sussex.

Brian, who hadn't picked up a bat in years, turned up in something vaguely beige, strapped on one pad, and batting without gloves peeled off about 75. The Aussies made plenty.

When the Wadhurst lads went in the opening attack was Brian, by then with a few pints aboard, and his brother-in-law Douglas Robinson, a lifelong friend of my family's in Brisbane.

Brian bowled beautiful off-cutters and away swingers, and Douggie, a strapping lad, came thundering down the hill from the pavilion end.

The poor quivering Wadhurst boys had never encountered anything like it.

At something like 25-6 I imposed a mercy rule and gave others a bowl just to keep the game going.

It was the era of Lillee and Thomson, and any Australian who walked onto a field in England was greeted with trepidation.

Brian was a superb sportsman - a very talented No.8 at rugby and a naturally gifted cricketer.

He made it all look so effortless.

Plenty of us here in Australia are mourning his loss.

I took this picture of him in Athens in early 2003, where he was Reuters bureau chief. ■